How has climate change affected the intensity of rain in the UAE and Oman?

2024-05-06 2024-05-06T11:49:30Z

Arabia Weather - According to a scientific analysis published recently, the record rains witnessed by the United Arab Emirates and Oman over the past weeks, which caused historic floods, were partly the result of climate change.

A team of 21 scientists and researchers working with the Global Weather Attribution Initiative found that climate change has made extreme rainfall events in the two countries - which typically occur during El Niño years - between 10 and 40 percent more intense than they would have been without. Human-caused global warming.

Study The world is now warmer by an estimated 1.2 degrees Celsius

The analysis indicates that the world is now warmer by an estimated 1.2 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial period, and this rise is mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels by humans, causing carbon pollution that is trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere.

During a period of less than 24 hours between April 14 and 15 , the United Arab Emirates witnessed the worst rainfall since records began 75 years ago. The analysis indicated that the city of Dubai witnessed huge amounts of rain equivalent to what usually falls in more than a year and a half in That period.

Despite using scientific models, the team was unable to determine the degree of likelihood of floods occurring; Precisely due to climate change.

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Despite this, scientists and researchers have concluded that global warming is considered the “most likely driver” of this heavy rainfall, and this analysis is attributed to the fact that the global atmosphere today, whose temperatures have increased by 1.2 degrees Celsius, may contain 8.4% More moisture, which increases the frequency of heavy rain events. In addition, changing climate patterns caused by global warming also increase the intensity of precipitation.

Although the team could not accurately determine how likely floods were due to climate change, they confirmed that the rainfall would not have been this intense without the El Niño phenomenon - which affects global weather by raising ocean temperatures - but also that the rainfall would not have been this intense without the El Niño phenomenon. Climate change.

In statements to reporters, Frederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute in London, confirmed that halting climate change is the ideal solution, and added:

“The solution is to stop burning fossil fuels and stop deforestation,” as deforestation is responsible for at least 12% of carbon pollution around the world.

Otto pointed out that the continued burning of fossil fuels will increase the frequency and intensity of rainfall in many regions of the world, leading to more destructive and deadly floods.

In the same context, Sonia Seneviratne, a professor at the Institute of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences in Zurich, confirmed that the floods witnessed in the United Arab Emirates and Oman show that even dry areas can be severely affected by rainfall events, a threat that is increasing with the escalation of burning fossil fuels and increasing global warming. resulting from it.