June 5, 2013

expert reaction to central European flooding

Rising river waters caused by days of torrential rain have caused havoc across central Europe.

Professor Nigel Arnell, Director of the University of Reading’s Walker Institute for Climate System Research, said:

“The current floods in central Europe show how susceptible even developed societies are to weather extremes. A deep and persistent low pressure area has brought significant rain to central Europe, falling onto catchments that were already saturated after a wet spring. January to March rainfall was more than double the average over large parts of Europe.

“We can’t attribute any single event to the underlying climate change that the planet is experiencing and there is a long history of flooding along the major rivers of central Europe. However, this sort of flooding event could become more frequent in the future as the planet warms.  A warm atmosphere holds more moisture and so rain is highly likely to fall in increasingly heavy bursts. In fact there’s some evidence that we are already seeing an increase in intense rainfall events across Europe, and many other land areas.

“However, we do not yet know what will happen to the frequency of rain-bearing events as atmospheric circulation patterns change in a warmer world. Current research at the University of Reading seeks to understand why the likelihood of heavy rainfall in Europe varies from year to year, and how this likelihood might be altered in our changing climate.”