by The storms that hit the UK and Ireland last autumn and winter caused the spill to be around 20% heavier, scientists have said.
A rapid-distribution study assessed the role of rising temperatures in the storms and heavy rains that caused at least 13 deaths and widespread damage across the two countries, as more than a dozen severe storms swept in between October and March.
Autumn and winter storms across the UK and Ireland were found to be getting wetter due to man-made global warming.
One of the scientists involved in the study issued a blunt warning that “climate change is already making life harder”, while another expert said the winter storms made things worse for struggling people already with the cost of living crisis, and that they hit physical and mental health.
The UK and Ireland saw between 13 and 14 major storms in 2023/24, 11 of which were named as part of a warning system in Western Europe.
Repeated floods caused power outages, disrupted travel, lost crops and livestock, and left farmers with flooded fields unable to plant in the spring.
The research used weather data and climate models to compare storm intensity and associated rainfall, as well as rainfall during the storm season, between today and the cooler pre-industrial climate.
Human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, which puts climate-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, has raised temperatures by around 1.2C since pre-industrial times.
The study found that human-caused climate change meant that the average rainfall on stormy days was about 20% heavier.
They said the type of intense rainstorm seen in 2023/2024 was 10 times more likely.
Where it happened about once every 50 years in the pre-industrial period, in today’s world a rainstorm was expected to happen in the same way about every five years.
The study also looked at total rainfall from October to March, which was the UK’s second wettest period on record and Ireland’s third wettest, and found that climate change increased rainfall over the season by 6% to 25%.
The wet conditions seen in 2023/2024 would have occurred at most every 80 years in the cooler pre-industrial era, but were now thought to be four times more likely, occurring around once every 20 years.
If temperatures rose further to 2C of warming, storm and seasonal rainfall would increase, the researchers said.
A warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, a key factor in climate change that encourages heavier rain.
But the “storminess” of the storms showed a decreasing trend in this study, pointing to the need for more research into how climate change might affect the intensity and frequency of windstorms in northern Europe, the researchers said. researchers.
Sarah Kew, a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, warned that “Ireland is facing a wetter, wetter and hazier future due to climate change”.
She said: “While the impact of climate change on strong storm winds is less clear, autumn and winter rainfall has become much heavier, leading to more damaging and sometimes fatal flooding in urban and agricultural areas.
“Until the world reduces emissions to net zero, the climate will continue to warm, and rain in the UK and Ireland will continue to get heavier.”
And Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London, said: “To put it bluntly, climate change is already making life tougher.
“A wetter winter means flooded farms, canceled football games, and overflowing sewage systems.
“Groceries are getting more expensive and Brits on holiday in Europe have to shelter from record heatwaves and wildfires.
“Thank God, we know the solutions – replacing oil, gas and coal with cleaner and cheaper renewables, insulating houses, restoring nature.”
“All of this will make life cheaper and better for everyone, not more expensive,” she said.
Ellie Murtagh, from the British Red Cross, said people were more at risk from storms and floods if they lived in floodplain housing, basement flats and mobile homes on coastal sites, and the cost of living crisis had stopped residents from interference. flood protection measures.
Flood insurance claims in the UK reached a record £573 million from the successive storms, but low-income households were less likely to have insurance, and cleaning up from floods involved multiple costs.
“At a time when people’s financial resilience was already being strained, these storms made things worse,” she said.
“In addition, the agricultural sector has also suffered with storms causing crop loss and financial pressure on farmers, with consequential effects on food supply and food prices.”
Scientists and experts from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, the Meteorological Office, Met Éireann, Imperial College London and the Red Cross were involved in the World Weather Attribution study.
