Heavy rains behind the recent devastating floods in Nigeria, Niger and Chad in Africa were about 80 times more likely due to the climate crisis, according to a study.

The discovery is the latest example of the serious impacts global warming is already having on communities, even with only a 1°C increase in global temperature so far. This increases pressure on the nations of the world at COP27, the UN climate conference in Egypt, to take meaningful action in protecting and compensating affected countries.

The floods between June and November are among the deadliest ever recorded in the region, the Guardian reports. Hundreds of people were killed, 1.5 million were displaced and more than 500,000 hectares of farmland were damaged.

The study, conducted by an international team of climate scientists as part of the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group, used weather data and computer models to compare the likelihood of heavy rains in today's heated world versus a world without global warming. Such rain would have been extremely rare without man-made warming, research has found, but is now expected once every decade.

Experts point out that a critical issue for COP27's success is establishing funding for "loss and damage" – compensation to rebuild after the inevitable climate catastrophes that are hitting increasingly vulnerable developing nations that have done little to cause the climate crisis. And these countries are demanding action from developed nations.

The WWA study pointed out that the reason the floods were so disastrous is that people in the region were already very vulnerable to extreme weather conditions as a result of poverty, violent conflict and political instability.

"The analysis found a very clear fingerprint of anthropogenic climate change," said Professor Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Climate Center, which is at COP27. "The floods have resulted in enormous suffering and damage, especially in a context of high human vulnerability. As scientists, we are not in a position to tell COP27 negotiators whether it needs to be a loss and damage fund, or an installation, or a mosaic of solutions, as they are being discussed. But what is very clear in science is that this is a real and current problem and that it is particularly the poorest countries that are being hit hard, so of course solutions are needed," he concluded.

Source: Um só Planeta