by The record rainfall that fell across the United Arab Emirates and Oman this month, triggering deadly floods and chaos, was partly fueled by the climate crisis, according to a scientific analysis published on Thursday that directly targeted people burning fossil fuels.
A team of 21 scientists and researchers, under the World Weather Attribution initiative, found that climate change was making extreme rainfall events in both countries – which typically fall during El Niño years – between 10 and 40% more intense than it would be without it. global warming.
Over a period of less than 24 hours between April 14 and 15, the United Arab Emirates experienced its heaviest rainfall since records began 75 years ago. Dubai – a delightfully deserted city accustomed to months without any precipitation at all – suffered more than a year and a half’s worth of rain in that time, the analysis said.
Using scientific models, the team was unable to determine exactly how likely the floods were due to climate change.
However, they concluded that global warming was the “most likely” driver of the record rainfall, as the atmosphere in a 1.2 degree warmer world could now hold 8.4% more moisture, making real rainfall events more intense. Changing circulation patterns driven by global warming are also increasing rainfall intensity, the analysis noted.
Global warming was the only other reason they could identify to explain the heavier spill.
Four people were killed in the UAE by the floods, and at least 19 others in Oman, including 10 children whose school bus was swept away in the destruction. The extreme weather caused pockets of flooding in various parts of the UAE that were visible in satellite images from space.
The floods also caused widespread disruption across Dubai. More than 1,000 flights due in and out of Dubai airport – the world’s second busiest – were canceled and delayed for days afterwards. People were forced to abandon their vehicles on roads that were inundated by the floods. Three Filipina women working in Dubai died in their car when they were caught by waters flowing down the street.
The city’s luxurious malls sprung leaks as rainwater blew through ceilings, and elevators stopped working in skyscrapers, forcing residents to climb stairs up the many floors. Unable to return home, some drivers slept in their cars due to blocked roads.
“The UAE and Oman floods have shown that even dry regions can be affected by precipitation events, a threat that is increasing with increasing global warming due to fossil fuel burning,” said Sonia Seneviratne, professor at the Institute of Atmospheric Science and Climate. in Zurich.
The heavy rain across the two countries came from two separate, powerful storm systems, said Mansour Almazroui of King Abdulaziz University’s Center of Excellence for Climate Change Research in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
He added that record sea temperatures played a role in charging the storms.
“The Indian Ocean is getting warmer. And the high pressure in the Indian Ocean definitely adds to the rain,” he told reporters.
The Arabian Peninsula, on which the UAE and Oman sit, experiences occasional heavy rain in April and May from systems known as mesoscale convective systems – several thunderstorms that act together as a single weather system .
Friederike OttoSenior Lecturer in Climate Science at the Grantham Institute in London, that studies note that these storms are increasing in frequency.
El Niño — a natural oscillation in ocean temperatures that influences global weather — was also a driving factor in the April rain event, Otto said. However, the focus must be on slowing climate change, she said.
“While we can’t stop El Niño, we can stop climate change,” Otto said. “The solution is to stop burning fossil fuels, stop deforestation,” she said. Deforestation is responsible for at least 12% of global carbon pollution.
The UAE’s state-owned energy company, ADNOC, has plans for a major expansion of oil and gas production, as previously reported by CNN. The country was widely criticized for electing ADNOC CEO Sultan Al-Jaber to chair UN-backed international climate talks in Dubai last year.
The talks were a success, and almost all nations agreed that the world should transition from fossil fuels.
But many fossil fuel-rich countries are still extracting vast amounts of coal, oil and planet-warming gas, and some are even planning to explore for more oil and build new infrastructure. The International Energy Agency has said the world must end new fossil fuel projects if it wants to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a science-based global goal at the heart of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Almost half a year on from the climate talks, “countries are still opening up new oil and gas fields,” Otto said. “If the world continues to burn fossil fuels, rainfall in many regions of the world will become heavier and heavier, leading to more deadly and destructive floods.”
CNN’s Abbas Al Lawati contributed to this report from Dubai.
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