Italy’s deadly floods are just the latest example of climate change’s all-or-nothing weather extremes

ROM (AP) – The Floods sent rivers of mud through the cities Northeast Italy has another pervasive dose of the all-or-nothing climate change extremes seen around the globe, scientists say.

The coastal region of Emilia-Romagna has been hit twice, first two weeks ago by torrential rains that failed to absorb drought-parched soil and flooded rivers overnight, followed by this week’s flooding that killed 14 people and caused estimated damage in billions caused by euros.

In a changing climate, there will be more rain, but less beneficial and more dangerous rains fall on fewer days.

The heavily affected region of Emilia-Romagna was particularly at risk. Its location between the Apennines and the Adriatic Sea caught the weather system this week dropping half the average annual rainfall in 36 hours.

“These are events that have developed with persistence and are classified as rare,” Fabrizio Curcio, the head of Italy’s Civil Protection Agency, told reporters.

On Friday, authorities said 43 cities were affected by flooding and landslides and that more than 500 roads had been closed or destroyed.

Antonello Pasini, climate researcher at Italy’s National Research Council, said a trend had become established: “For example, an increase in rainfall per year overall, but a decrease in the number of rainy days and an increase in the intensity of rain.” where it rains,” he said.

The north of Italy is parched thanks to two years of drought Below average snowfall in winter Months. Melting snow from the Alps, Dolomites, and Apennines typically provides a steady runoff during spring and summer that fills Italy’s lakes, irrigates the agricultural heartland, and keeps the Po and other major rivers and tributaries flowing.

Without the normal snowfall in the mountains, the plains have dried up and river beds, lakes and reservoirs have receded. Even if it rains, they can’t recover because the soil is essentially “impermeable” and the rain just washes over the topsoil and into the sea, Pasini said.

“So the drought is not necessarily compensated for by these extreme rainfall events,” he said, “because in northern Italy the drought is more dependent on snow storage in the Alps than rain.” And in the last two years we’ve had very little snow.”

Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci said the new normal of extreme weather events in the Mediterranean required an adjustment by Italians and a nationwide overhaul of flood defenses by Italy. He referred to a violent landslide triggered by a storm last fall on the southern island of Ischia off Naples, in which twelve people died.

“We can’t just pretend nothing is happening,” he said on Thursday. “Everything has to change: the programming in hydraulic infrastructure has to change, the technical approach has to change.”

He said the changes were necessary to prevent the type of flooding that has inundated entire cities with mud after two dozen rivers burst their banks.

The key to the future is prevention, he said, acknowledging that this is not an easy sell because of the cost.

“We are not a nation prone to prevention. “We’d rather rebuild than prevent,” he told Sky TG24.

Italy is far from the only country to stagger from dry to flood. California and the western United States sloshed from a record-breaking mega drought to at least a dozen atmospheric fluxes flood the region with so much rain that a The long dormant lake reappeared.

scientists say Flash floods like in Germany and Belgium two years ago, which killed more than 220 people and caused billions of dollars in damage, becomes more likely as the planet warms.

“The rainiest events appear to be getting rainier in many places,” said Princeton University climate scientist Gabe Vecchi on Thursday.

In 2021, the scientific panel of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said it was “established fact” that human emissions of greenhouse gases are increasing had led to more frequent and more intense weather extremes. The panel cited heatwaves as the most obvious, but said heavy rainfall was also likely to have increased in most parts of the world.

The UN report states: “There is robust evidence that record rainfall and one in five, one in ten and one in 20 annual rainfall “have become more frequent since the 1950s.”

Borenstein contributed from Kensington, Maryland.

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