In a new study, an international group of scientists with the World Weather Attribution initiative has concluded that climate change made the heavy rainfall that led to this month’s deadly Libyan floods up to 50 times more likely.

The first half of September brought extreme rainfall to several Mediterranean countries. On September 10, Libya was hit with disastrous flooding following torrential rainfall associated with Storm Daniel that caused 4,128 confirmed deaths with more than 10,000 still missing, a press release from World Weather Attribution said.

Following the devastating flooding in the Mediterranean, World Weather Attribution’s international team from the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, the United Kingdom and the U.S. came together to assess how much the intensity and likelihood of the extreme rainfall were influenced by human-induced climate change.

“The severe flooding in Spain, Greece, Türkiye, Bulgaria and Libya was caused by very heavy rainfall that fell, in the case of Spain in less than 24 hours, whereas it lasted 24 hours in Libya and up to 4 days over Greece and Türkiye,” the press release said.

The scientists used computer and climate simulations to compare current weather events with those in a world where the climate was not 1.2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, reported Reuters.

A warmer atmosphere is able to hold in more water vapor, which allows moisture to build up in clouds, causing increased rainfall. Climate change can also cause erratic weather patterns.

The research team found that climate change not only made the severe rainfall in Libya up to 50 times more likely, but as much as 50 percent more intense.

Most people in the north-eastern cities of Derna, Sousa, Benghazi and Al-Marj were not prepared for the amount of rainfall or levels of flooding Storm Daniel brought.

“In Libya, the volume of water and overnight timing of the dam failures made it so that anyone in the path of the water was at increased risk, not just those who are typically highly vulnerable,” the study said. “In addition to the lack of maintenance, the Al-Bilad and Abu Mansour dams were built in the 1970s, using relatively short rainfall records, and may not have been designed to withstand a 1 in 600 year rainfall event.”

Better forecasting, warning systems and communication of the warnings to the general public, as well as updated infrastructure, are needed to help people in the region be better prepared for extreme and unprecedented weather events.

“In conjunction with improved emergency management capacity, impact-based forecasts may help to provide a clearer understanding of how the rainfall translates into potential impacts and could lead to improved warnings in the future,” the study said. “This disaster also points to the challenge of needing to design and maintain infrastructure for not just the climate of the present or the past, but also the future. In Libya, this means taking into account the long-term decline in average rainfall, and at the same time, the increase in extreme rainfall like this heavy rainfall event; a challenging prospect especially for a country plagued by crises.”

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