Weather & Science
Climate Change Made Deadly Floods in Libya and Greece More Extreme
Global warming made recent heavy rainfall up to 10 times more likely.
Residents rescued by boat from flooded homes following heavy rain in Palamas in Karditsa region, Greece.
Photographer: Konstantinos Tsakalidis/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The low-pressure weather system that unleashed unprecedented amounts of rain across the eastern Mediterranean last week was made more likely and more intense by climate change.
Global warming caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases made the heavy rainfall over Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey up to 10 times more likely, and the deluge in Libya up to 50 times more likely. That’s according to World Weather Attribution, a group of climate scientists that rapidly analyzes weather data after natural disasters to determine the influence of climate change.