The Bay Area is preparing for potential flooding as another atmospheric river approaches, while San Diego is still recovering from an extreme rainfall event last week. In Paris, a group of scientists has developed a tool called Climameter, which aims to analyze and evaluate the impacts of climate change on extreme weather occurrences like the flood in San Diego.
According to researchers at Climameter, a warmer earth is intensifying and accelerating the water cycle. As humans continue to contribute to global warming, the atmosphere becomes more thirsty, leading to increased evaporation of water and more rapid precipitation. This can result in concentrated rainfall in specific areas, such as Southern California. Climameter was used to assess how the burning of fossil fuels made the atmospheric river in San Diego even more intense, causing widespread flooding and triggering mudslides.
Davide Farande, a representative from Climameter, explains that anthropogenic climate change has led to an increase of up to 15% in rainfall during events like the one experienced in San Diego.
Climameter utilizes historical data to provide context and calculations immediately after extreme weather events. As these events that were previously considered rare occurrences now happen multiple times a year, the use of tools like Climameter may become more frequent in analyzing and understanding the impacts of climate change on extreme weather phenomena.
