Climate change exacerbates deadly floods in Libya and worldwide

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https://www.npr.org/2023/09/13/1199273629/climate-change-exacerbates-deadly-floods-worldwide


Excerpt: Catastrophic floods in eastern Libya killed at least 3,958 people, according to the United Nations. The disaster comes after a string of deadly floods around the world this month, from China to Brazil to Greece. In every case, extremely heavy rain was to blame. The enormous loss of life on multiple continents reinforces the profound danger posed by climate-driven rain storms, and the need for better warning systems and infrastructure to protect the most vulnerable populations. Climate change makes heavy rain more common, even in arid places where the total amount of precipitation is small. That's because a hotter atmosphere can hold more moisture. Everyday rainstorms, as well as bigger storms such as hurricanes, are increasingly dangerous as a result. Human-caused warming made the extreme rainfall in Libya 50 times more likely to happen, according to a rapid analysis done by World Weather Attribution, a team of international climate scientists. It was also up to 50 percent more intense, compared to a climate without the added greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. The magnitude of the storm was outside the bounds of historical weather records, which means the study's findings have more uncertainty about how strong a role climate change played.... 

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