There Is More To Spain’s Horrific Flooding Than Just Climate Change
This could change things.
The recent floods in Spain were nothing short of biblical. A year’s worth of rain fell in just a few hours over the Valencia region. Not only was it the worst-ever peacetime disaster for the country, but it was also Europe’s deadliest flash flood of the past half-century. Over 200 people died, critical infrastructure was wiped out, and thousands of hectares of farmland on which the region relies were decimated. This is a “natural” disaster of the highest calibre. Yet, its impacts will be profoundly felt far beyond Spain’s borders, and this pain could trigger the seismic shift we need to mitigate these disasters.
So, what caused this immense flood? Was it man-made climate change?
Well, it can take time to attribute extreme weather to anthropogenic climate change directly, so we don’t yet know definitively. That being said, climate scientists have been warning us for at least a decade that climate change will cause far more frequent and intense rainfall over Europe and North Africa. There has also been a painfully obvious trend of extreme rainfall and flooding events in Europe and Northern Africa in recent years, with pretty much all of them being linked to climate change. As such, it is almost a sure shot that this flood was made…
