Warming, other factors worsened Pakistan floods, study finds - KPRC Click2Houston

FILE - A displaced family wades through a flooded area after heavy rainfall, in Jaffarabad, a district of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, Aug. 24, 2022. A new study says human-caused climate change juiced the rainfall that triggered Pakistan's floods by up to 50%. But the authors of the Thursday, Sept. 15, study say other societal issues that make the country vulnerable and put people in harm's way are probably the biggest factor in the ongoing humanitarian disaster. (AP Photo/Zahid Hussain, File)
Climate change likely juiced rainfall by up to 50% late last month in two southern Pakistan provinces, but global warming wasn’t the biggest cause of the country’s catastrophic flooding that has killed more than 1,500 people, a new scientific analysis finds.
Pakistan’s overall vulnerability, including people living in harm’s way, is the chief factor in the disaster that at one point submerged one-third of the country under water, but human-caused “climate change also plays a really important role here,” said study senior author Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College of London.
There are many ingredients to the still ongoing humanitarian crisis — some meteorological, some economic, some societal, some historic and construction oriented. Add to that weather records that don’t go back far enough in time.
With such complications and limitations, the team of international scientists looking at the disaster couldn’t quantify how much climate change had...

Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.