Reacción a "A new study concludes that climate change intensified the flooding caused by the dana in Valencia in 2024"

This study, entitled ‘Human-induced climate change amplification on storm dynamics in Valencia’s 2024 catastrophic flash flood’, uses climate model experiments to place the 2024 DANA episode — which caused the catastrophic flooding in Valencia — under present-day climate conditions and under hypothetical cooler conditions, assuming that human activities had not warmed the climate over the past 150 years. Although it remains uncertain whether, and in what way, the frequency of such weather systems may change in a warmer climate, comparing simulations of the same storm under cooler and warmer conditions makes it possible to estimate the extent to which the storm was intensified once it had developed.

The study concludes that global warming substantially increased both the rainfall totals associated with the storm and the area affected by extreme precipitation. On the one hand, higher sea surface temperatures supply more moisture to the atmosphere, and a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour, which subsequently condenses into rainfall, leading to heavier precipitation. On the other hand, the study also identifies feedback mechanisms that enhanced vertical air motion and moisture within the storm, further amplifying its intensity. These mechanisms are consistent with theory; however, the latter — the dynamical amplification of storms — depends to some extent on the model used, and the precise quantification of the intensification could vary if the experiments were conducted with a different model.

Overall, this study makes a highly significant contribution to understanding the processes that amplify episodes of heavy rainfall in a warmer climate, pushing them beyond the threshold of an ‘ordinary’ extreme event and into the realm of disaster.