A study has found that pollution from human activity has doubled the likelihood of the extreme rainfall that hit central Europe in September. The research indicates that global warming intensified the four-day rain event, which led to devastating floods across several countries, including Austria and Romania. According to World Weather Attribution (WWA), climate change made the rainfall at least 7% heavier, resulting in flooding that would have been far less likely without human-induced warming.
Bogdan Chojnicki, a climate scientist at Poznań University, warned that continued fossil fuel emissions will worsen such events. Storm Boris, which stalled over central Europe, brought record rain to countries such as Austria, Poland, and Romania, transforming rivers and causing deadly floods that killed two dozen people. Although adaptation measures reduced the death toll compared to past floods in 1997 and 2002, experts called for improved flood defenses and disaster-response strategies.
Maja Vahlberg of the Red Cross emphasized the increasing costs of climate change, noting that despite warnings, floods still devastated communities, with the EU pledging €10 billion in aid. Rapid attribution studies, including this one, compared recent rainfall with a cooler pre-industrial world, finding that human activity doubled the likelihood and increased rainfall intensity by 7%.
While the study’s findings are considered conservative, it highlights how warming increases atmospheric moisture, amplifying the potential for severe floods. Scientists compared global heating to buying more lottery tickets for extreme events, suggesting a higher chance of catastrophic weather. They predict that if global temperatures rise by 2°C, the intensity and likelihood of such storms will further increase, trapping weather systems in place for longer, leading to even more destructive storms.
