Climate Change Intensified Southern Africa's Torrential Rains and Floods, Study Concludes
A recent study has concluded that human-caused climate change intensified torrential rains and floods across Southern Africa, leading to over 100 fatalities and displacing more than 300,000 individuals.
Attribution Study Details
The World Weather Attribution study focused on heavy rainfall events in South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, where some areas received a year's worth of rain within a 10-day period. The floods caused significant damage to housing and infrastructure, with estimated costs in the millions of dollars. In Mozambique, homes and buildings were submerged, while roads and bridges were destroyed in South Africa's Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces and parts of Zimbabwe.
International scientists conducted the study using peer-reviewed methods to assess climate change's influence on severe weather patterns. Data from these downpours, which occur in such magnitude approximately once every 50 years, indicates a trend towards more intense rainfall.
Intensified Deluge Amidst Warmer Atmosphere
The situation was further exacerbated by the La Niña weather phenomenon, which typically brings wetter conditions to Southern Africa but operated within an already warmer atmosphere.
Izidine Pinto, a senior climate researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and a co-author of the study, stated that their analysis demonstrates how continued fossil fuel burning increases extreme rainfall intensity and exacerbates existing weather events.
"A 40% increase in rain intensity would be inexplicable without human-caused climate change."
Pinto noted that while climate models struggled to quantify the exact contribution of climate change to the floods, an already severe period of heavy rain became a more violent deluge, overwhelming local communities.
Unprecedented Scale of Impact
Southern African regions are accustomed to heavy rainfall and flooding, but the scale of these recent events was notable to scientists. Bernardino Nhantumbo, a researcher with the Mozambique weather service, described the event as surprising, citing similar floods 25 years prior.
"Some areas received an entire rainy season's rainfall in just two to three days, creating immense challenges."
Nhantumbo explained that Mozambique's position downstream from nine international rivers contributes to extensive damage from both heavy rainfall and river flow. He added that even with good forecasting, the associated damage from such events can be unavoidable.
Central and southern Mozambique, including the provincial capital Xai-Xai and the town of Chokwe, experienced the most significant impact, with these areas largely submerged.
The Need for African-Specific Climate Models
Researchers advocate for the development of climate models within Africa to gain a more precise understanding of climate change dynamics and its regional impacts. Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London, suggested that the absence of African-developed climate models contributes to the difficulty in quantifying climate change's specific role in the floods.
"The absence of African-developed climate models contributes to the difficulty in quantifying climate change's specific role in the floods."
Otto clarified that existing climate models are primarily developed in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and are typically optimized for their respective development regions, highlighting a gap for African-specific modeling.