Pakistan floods ‘likely’ made worse by warming
Global warming is likely to have played a role in the devastating floods that hit Pakistan, say scientists. Researchers from the World Weather Attribution group say climate change may have increased the intensity of rainfall. However there were many uncertainties in the results, so the team were unable to quantify the scale of the impact.The scientists believe there’s roughly a 1% chance of such an event happening in any coming year.
In the two months since flooding began in Pakistan, tens of millions of people have been affected, with around 1,500 dying because of the rising waters. The intensity of the downpours saw the river Indus burst its banks, while landslides and urban flash floods swamped many areas. Right from the start, politicians pointed to climate change as having made a significant contribution to the desperate scenes. But this first scientific analysis says the picture is complex. Certainly, the crippling heatwaves that gripped India and Pakistan earlier this year were easier to attribute, with researchers finding that climate change had made them up to 30 times more likely to happen. But extreme rainfall events are hard to assess. Pakistan is located on the edge of the monsoon region where the rainfall pattern is extremely variable from year to year.(BBC)…[+]