Climate change made the recent flooding that devastated southern Brazil, a team of international scientists said in a recent study published on Monday.
The scientists said that the heavy rains were also intensified by the natural El Nino phenomenon. The same study said that El Nino increased the probability of the event by a factor of 2 to 5, while making the rainfall 3% to 10% more intense, Reuters reported.
The El Nino phenomenon is a natura climate occurance that contributes to higher temperatures in many parts of the world and increases rainfall and flood risk in parts of the Americas.
Most previous heavy rainfall events in the area occurred during El Niño years, said the group.
“The climate in Brazil has already changed,” said Lincoln Alves, a researcher at Brazil’s space research center INPE as quoted by Reuters.”This attribution study confirms that human activities have contributed to more intense and frequent extreme events, highlighting the country’s vulnerability to climate change.”
More than 170 people were killed and nearly 580,000 displaced after storms and floods took over Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul last month. The 2024 April-May floods in Rio Grande do Sul have affected over 90% of the state, which is an area equivalent to the UK.
To assess the role of human-induced climate change experts from the World Weather Attribution group combines observation-based products and climate models. The scientists then estimated that climate change had made the event twice as likely and intensity increase of 6-9% due to the burning of fossil fuels.
