Wetter atmosphere may have exacerbated Central European floods, climatologist says

euronews (in English)

Geosphere Austria climatologist Marc Olefs said that the fossil fuel industry is to blame for the exacerbation of extreme weather events, including heavy rainfall as seen over Europe over the past couple of weeks.

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00:00Extreme floods, such as those that have devastated central Europe in recent weeks, are likely

00:06to become more frequent as the Earth's temperature rises.

00:11That's according to a leading Austrian climate research expert, who says these events that

00:16were once expected to occur every 100 years may now happen every 80 to 90 years.

00:22We are currently heating up the Earth at a rate of about 14 Hiroshima atomic bombs per

00:28second.

00:29This is the additional energy that we humans are currently adding to the Earth's system

00:33with which the Earth warms up, and this leads to the fact that the air can also contain more

00:38water vapor and such heavy rains also become more extreme.

00:42Flooding across central Europe, triggered by Storm Boris, has destroyed homes and public

00:47infrastructure and killed at least a dozen people.

00:52In the St. Pölten area of Lower Austria last weekend, up to 430 litres of rain per square

00:59metre fell within a few days, a volume that usually falls over six to nine months.

01:22It's estimated that repairing the damage caused by the floods will cost at least £1.5

01:29billion.

01:30That's a significant amount of money.

01:33It's estimated that repairing the damage caused by the floods will cost at least £1.5 billion.

01:38It's estimated that repairing the damage caused by the floods will cost at least £1.5 billion.

01:43It's estimated that repairing the damage caused by the floods will cost at least £1.5 billion.

01:49It's estimated that repairing the damage caused by the floods will cost at least £1.5 billion.

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