Circumstantial evidence points to climate change as worsening the deadly deluge that just flooded Dubai and other parts of the Persian Gulf, but scientists didn't discover the definitive fingerprints of greenhouse gas-triggered warming they have seen in other extreme weather events, a new report found.
Between 10% and 40% more rain fell in just one day last week than it would have in a world without the 1.2 degrees Celsius from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas since the mid-19th century, scientists at World Weather Attribution said.
In at least one spot, a record 28.6 centimetres of rain fell in just 24 hours, more than twice the yearly average, paralysing the usually bustling city of skyscrapers in a desert.
Heavy rains and flooding killed at least two dozen people in the United Arab Emirates, Oman and parts of Saudi Arabia.
One of the key tools in WWA's more than 60 past reports has been creating computer simulations that compare an actual weather event to a fictional world without climate change.
In the Dubai case there wasn’t enough data for those simulations to make such a calculation. But analysis of decades of past observations, the other main tool they use, showed the 10% to 40% bump in rainfall amounts.
Even without computer simulations, the clues kept pointing at climate change, scientists said.
There is a long-known effect in physics that finds the air holds 7% more moisture with every degree Celsius.
