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Scientists discover rare once-in-200-years event that caused floods in Italy

2023-06-01 19:31:53Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Scientists discover rare once-in-200-years event that caused floods in Italy
View from the floods in Italy

A rare combination of three cyclones in a row brought devastating floods this month across much of northern Italy. But scientists said Wednesday that climate change may not be to blame for the intense rainfall.

Using computer simulations and previous findings, a team of scientists failed to find evidence that warming caused by human activity was the cause of the flood. Scientists from the World Weather Attribution scientific group compared the events to a simulated version of a world without human-caused warming. Unlike many past studies, scientists found no evidence of climate change driven by the use of fossil fuels.

However, precisely because it is so rare for three major rainstorms to occur in such a short period – the study estimated there is a 1 in 200 chance of three cyclones hitting within a three-week period – experts say it will take more time for this study.

"This is not the end of the story," said study co-author Davide Faranda, a climate physics researcher at the Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute in France. "This event is very rare," he said during an event to present the findings.

"Remember there was a drought before," the first storm hit the Emilia-Romagna region on May 2, and "this (drought) was due to climate change," Mr. Faranda said. He was referring to two years of little or no rainfall, which left the soil so parched that it could not absorb the first rainfall. The drought was largely caused by a lack of snowfall in the Alps, which normally feeds the Po River and other smaller waterways in northern Italy.

This study was undertaken "to answer the question of whether and to what extent climate change" had an impact on flooding in Emilia-Romagna, said Friederike Otto, of Imperial College London, and co-founder of the scientific group.

While hundreds of roads, homes, farms and other businesses are still submerged in floodwaters, the study was conducted only a week ago and has not passed the scientific opposition process.

While the region has a history of heavy flooding, "the heavy rainfall during the first 21 days of May 2023 brought the heaviest rainfall of its kind ever recorded," the study says.

But "out of the 19 models used, none of them shows a significant likelihood or intensity for such an event to occur," the study states. "This suggests that, unlike most parts of the world, there is not really a noticeable increase in heavy rainfall in the Emilia-Romagna region in spring."

Looking at the May floods, in this case "where we clearly do not see any trend", Ms Otto said.

The last of the three floods in May was the most damaging and caused 15 deaths. Extremely heavy and concentrated rainfall caused about 300 landslides and flooding of 22 rivers. The flood waters were so high that fire and coast guard helicopters were needed to rescue some residents who climbed onto the roofs of three-story buildings to escape drowning.

The study's findings confirmed previous studies that found that “with human-induced climate change, the number of low-pressure systems in the Mediterranean has decreased. This leads to a decrease in heavy rainfall, offsetting the expected increase in heavy rainfall from global warming."

Emilia-Romagna is one of the most prosperous regions of Italy. As elsewhere in the north, during the country's postwar economic boom, much of the region was rapidly urbanized, denying the area much-needed drainage and increasing the risk of flooding.

All of this "exacerbated the impact of heavy rainfall. However, this was an extremely rare event and most infrastructure cannot reasonably be built to withstand such low-frequency events." , the scientists said in their findings.

"Disasters don't just happen from rain falling from the sky," said study co-author Roop Singh of the Netherlands-based Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.


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