In recent years in Europe the duration of rainfall has increased. Rains pour during four days and have already caused severe flooding. They affected not only the Black Sea coast, but also the Alpine area of Switzerland, Germany and Austria. In Sweden there is the rainiest summer for the last two hundred years; rain falls every day. In Poland, the hail has broken the windows of houses, cars and even roofs. In Hungary, the temperature dropped to 20 degrees only in a few hours.
“Clearly, the longer the rain falls, the more the probability of flooding increases, even with the same amount of precipitation”, - Sergei Dobrolubov, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University, Corresponding Member of the RAS, says. – “There is another interesting fact: we all remember the two most anomalous periods of strong heat, which we had in Central Russia and in Ukraine - in 1972 and 2010. It turns out that the conditions in the Atlantic have been completely different. In 1972 there was a cold anomaly over almost all the North Atlantic, except for a small territory in the middle of the ocean in the North Atlantic Current. And two years ago when we had an abnormally intense heat, on the contrary, the anomaly in the Atlantic was hot, with only a little cold territory in the center. And the result was absolutely the same. Finally, let us pass over to Japan and to what happened in 2011. After 1974 and the Arab-Israeli war, when oil prices grew drastically, the Japanese began to build nuclear power plants. Where can you find the cheapest water? It can be found near the sea. They built those plants near the sea and built a ten nuclear power dam. The wave which came was 11.5 m high, and nothing could protect the plants. If they had predicted a greater height, probably, this would not have happened. Probably they should not build anything near the sea, knowing that the risk cannot be predicted in advance.
Up to now there have been no more than 200-250 mm of rainfall per day in the Black Sea coast, near Novorossiysk and Gelendzhik. As a result of the rains that fell from 4 to 7 July, there was up to 300 mm of rainfall per day. This can happen once in 50 or 100 years. In fact, it has never been observed. But everything that has been flooded and destroyed there is always flooded and destroyed once in 10, 20 or 30 years. In general, the residents need to know it. And if they take risks to build camp sites, beaches and houses there, so they understand that once in 20-30 years they will lose it all. Land is very expensive in this region, and therefore there is no extra space. But we must be prepared to at least save lives in these conditions, if we cannot completely save our property”.
Meanwhile, according to Evgeny Yakovlev, Chief Scientific Officer of the Institute for Telecommunications and Global Information Space of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, “today, we see the increase not only of the irregularity of rainfall, but also of the area of the flooding, especially in small channels where this abnormal rainfall falls. It is some kind of a new energy impact of this boundary of the active mixing of air masses of the continent and of the sea. I would like to pay attention to the fact that we now should also take into account that there is a sea-level rise of, according to various estimates, from 0.3 to 0.5 m in the last century. This is the increase in wavelength. This is the moving of the limit of uprush. In addition, just as in Russia, in Ukraine we closed the river runoff and reduced the removal of solid material. In this regard, the situation with our banks is changing, and there is a new state of both bridges mentioned here and road embankments, which are also barriers to excess rainfall. In this case we have an increase of wave energy impact on coastal beach areas; the example is the recent destruction of the embankments in Yalta, in Alushta. In fact, we probably already need to look in a new way at the safety of the coast, if we already have landslide not only at a height of 15-30 m, like in Odessa, near Yalta or the Crimean Mountains, but also at a height of 3-4 m. Do not forget that, just as in Russia, up to 70% of the territory of Ukraine is loose soil, which is more sensitive to water and to heat. It is like refined sugar. It is hard, when it is dry. Breathe on it, and it will turn into croup, and then into syrup. In principle, I think today we need to say that we really need a new strict town planning law. We need a monitoring system with operating models. We need zoning, not only at the domestic level, but also at the international one. I would like to draw your attention to the present experience of building a dam in Taman in Russia. Yes, they defended their territory, but there were the Coriolis effects; the ground is moving to the sea from the western shore of the Kerch Strait, and, in principle, I think it will soon activate landslides on the coast of the Kerch. Today there is a discussion on the issue of building a bridge or a tunnel in this region which will connect the two sides of the strait. It's a transboundary issue, a political one, but taking into consideration climate change, I think it is a factor of additional risks”.
According to Lyudmila Sirenko, Head of the Department of Hydrology of the State Hydrometeorological Service of the Republic of Moldova, “during this period in which heavy rains fell, they certainly brought us harm, but not so much as it was in Russia. We had a maximum of 66 mm of rainfall in 3 hours. But the wind caused the damage, and the water did not rise significantly in the small channels due to the precipitation – the increase was about 0.5 - 1 m only, and, accordingly, the water stayed within the channel. But I want to speak specifically about the paging system. The existing monitoring system allows us to exchange information between Ukraine and Moldova, to be able to predict what we expect, especially in our larger channels, which are the Dniester and the Prut. These are two great arteries, which are located in Moldova. These are transborder rivers. These are rivers which are also related to the Ukrainian sideand the Romanian side. Yes, we have enough time considering the time lag associated with the coming of the wave. We can predict something like now, when we have predicted these rains. We have three codes of danger, and the two of them were used in this situation – an orange code and a yellow code, warning about wind and rain. If we, the State Hydrometeorological Service, are aware of every emergency situation, and we are aware of it, we can prevent it when we can at least do something”.
