How global heating supercharged floods in West Africa displacing thousands | Extreme weather

Dozens of people drowned, hundreds had to be rescued and thousands were displaced when floods hit the West African coast last month.

Scientists have now concluded that flood-causing rains have increased excessively due to climate disruption. They say global warming is turning what should be a routine weather event into a climate disaster.

They also warn that affected countries must adapt to a frightening new reality. “The climate is changing faster than most countries can adapt,” said Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at Imperial College London.

“It’s critical to adapt to these now-common events, but it’s also critical to reduce emissions much further and faster to give us time to adjust to the changes we’ve already put in place. Simply, these extremes will only get worse until emissions stop.”

People living along the Gulf of Guinea expect rain at this time of year. The rainy season lasts from May to the end of July. I admit, this year was particularly heavy, but what started on June 20 took people by surprise.

Heavy rains for 72 hours submerged densely populated coastal areas of Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo and Nigeria. More than 140 mm of rain fell in some cities in less than a day. The flood overwhelmed drainage systems, triggering a series of floods.

From Lagos to Monrovia in Liberia, floodwaters flooded neighborhoods and washed away markets. It flooded roads and submerged infrastructure. At least 34 people died in Ghana. Five people died in Togo. 59 people have died due to floods in Ivory Coast since May.

On Thursday, Otto and the World Weather Attribution team said such flooding is five times more likely in today’s climate. It was stated that heavy rains lasting three days in the region have increased by approximately 23% since record keeping began.

They warned that it wouldn’t be long before something similar happened again. With the climate 1.4 degrees Celsius warmer than before the industrial use of fossil fuels, rain on a similar scale is expected to fall over the Gulf of Guinea every two to four years.

To quantify the role the climate crisis played in the disaster, scientists compared historical weather observations with climate model simulations. They specifically focused on the three most extreme days of precipitation.

It showed that climate change caused a 4% increase in intensity, although climate models often struggle to recreate similar events in regions in the global south. Researchers said this makes them feel confident that greenhouse gas emissions are intensifying the phenomenon.

The lead author of the study was Joyce Kimutai, who researches extreme weather conditions and climate change at Imperial College London. He said: “Climate models often struggle to capture the full range of tropical rainfall trends when we look at extreme events like this.

“It is therefore important that we find such a role for climate change. Combined with the much wetter trend in observational data, it is clear that human-induced warming is making this event worse, wetter, with devastating effects.”

“This study is a clear example of the need for international cooperation on climate justice. Industrialized nations have a responsibility to help countries like Togo, Ivory Coast and Ghana adapt to a worsening problem they did not cause.”