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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <a
class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/16/climate-scientists-shocked-by-scale-of-floods-in-germany">theguardian.com</a>
<h1 class="reader-title">Climate scientists shocked by scale of
floods in Germany</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Jonathan Watts</div>
<div class="meta-data">
<div class="reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">5-7 minutes</div>
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<p>The intensity and scale of the floods in <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/germany"
data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="in body
link">Germany</a> this week have shocked climate
scientists, who did not expect records to be broken this
much, over such a wide area or this soon.</p>
<p>After the deadly heatwave in the US and Canada, where
temperatures rose above 49.6C two weeks ago, the deluge in
central <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news"
data-component="auto-linked-tag" data-link-name="in body
link">Europe</a> has raised fears that human-caused
climate disruption is making extreme weather even worse
than predicted.</p>
<p>Precipitation records were smashed across a wide area of
the Rhine basin on Wednesday, with devastating
consequences. At least <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/14/firefighter-drowns-and-army-deployed-amid-severe-flooding-in-germany"
data-link-name="in body link">58 people have been killed</a>,
tens of thousands of homes flooded and power supplies
disrupted.</p>
<p>Parts of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia
were inundated with 148 litres of rain per sq metre within
48 hours in a part of Germany that usually sees about 80
litres in the whole of July.</p>
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<p>01:45</p>
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<figure id="edf40f6e-7a24-43cd-b374-870d5c873929">
<div data-chromatic="ignore" data-component="youtube-atom"><figcaption><span>'It
went so fast': villagers describe destruction as flooding
hits western Germany – video</span></figcaption></div>
</figure>
<p>The city of Hagen declared a state of emergency after the Volme
burst its banks and its waters rose to levels not seen more than
four times a century.</p>
<p>The most striking of more than a dozen records <a
href="https://twitter.com/Kachelmannwettr/status/1415563977694777344/photo/1"
data-link-name="in body link">was set at the Köln-Stammheim
station</a>, which was deluged in 154mm of rain over 24 hours,
obliterating the city’s previous daily rainfall high of 95mm.</p>
<p>Climate scientists have long predicted that human emissions would
cause more floods, heatwaves, droughts, storms and other forms of
extreme weather, but the latest spikes have surpassed many
expectations.</p>
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<p>01:00</p>
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<figure id="369fb58e-403e-41cb-9d8e-651e169a38cf">
<div data-chromatic="ignore" data-component="youtube-atom"><figcaption><span>Germany
floods: stranded residents rescued by helicopter from
rooftops – video</span></figcaption></div>
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<p>“I am surprised by how far it is above the previous record,”
Dieter Gerten, professor of global change climatology and
hydrology at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research,
said. “We seem to be not just above normal but in domains we
didn’t expect in terms of spatial extent and the speed it
developed.”</p>
<p>Gerten, who grew up in a village in the affected area, said it
occasionally flooded, but not like this week. Previous summer
downpours have been as heavy, but have hit a smaller area, and
previous winter storms have not raised rivers to such dangerous
levels. “This week’s event is totally untypical for that region.
It lasted a long time and affected a wide area,” he said.</p>
<p>Scientists will need more time to assess the extent to which
human emissions made this storm more likely, but the record
downpour is in keeping with broader global trends.</p>
<figure id="e8e25501-ce81-4f96-b733-570db119958b"></figure>
<p>“With climate change we do expect all hydro-meteorological
extremes to become more extreme. What we have seen in Germany is
broadly consistent with this trend.” said Carlo Buontempo, the
director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service at the European
Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.</p>
<p>The seven hottest years in recorded history <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/30/floods-storms-and-searing-heat-2020-in-extreme-weather"
data-link-name="in body link">have occurred since 2014</a>,
largely as a result of global heating, which is caused by engine
exhaust fumes, forest burning and other human activities. Computer
models predict this will cause more extreme weather, which means
records will be broken with more frequency in more places.</p>
<p>The Americas have been the focus in recent weeks. The Canadian
national daily heat record <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/02/canadian-inferno-northern-heat-exceeds-worst-case-climate-models"
data-link-name="in body link">was exceeded by more than 5C</a>
two weeks ago, as were several local records in Oregon and
Washington. Scientists said these extremes at such latitudes were
virtually impossible <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/07/world-must-step-up-preparations-for-extreme-heat"
data-link-name="in body link">without human-driven warming</a>.
Last weekend, the monitoring station at Death Valley in California
<a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/12/health-warnings-as-death-valley-scorches-in-544c-heat"
data-link-name="in body link">registered 54.4C</a>, which could
prove to be the highest reliably recorded temperature on Earth.</p>
<figure id="7acc0e57-456e-4071-8dc7-00aa96b8a853">
<div><source media="(-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 1.25),
(min-resolution: 120dpi)"><source><img alt="People watch the
Ruhr in flood from the Brehminsel dam"
src="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8fc7932dc35bfae81163cede8cd1e4567f76bbb4/0_261_6541_3925/master/6541.jpg?width=445&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=1aa8106f75272ae323e2d2d9bfe526f0"
width="463" height="277"></div>
<figcaption><span><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"
width="11" height="10" viewBox="0 0 11 10"></svg></span></figcaption></figure>
<figure id="7acc0e57-456e-4071-8dc7-00aa96b8a853"><figcaption><span>People
watch the Ruhr in flood from the Brehminsel dam.</span>
Photograph: Action Press/Rex/Shutterstock</figcaption></figure>
<p>Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California
in Los Angeles, said so many records were being set in the US this
summer that they no longer made the news: “The extremes that would
have been newsworthy a couple of years ago aren’t, because they
pale in comparison to the astonishing rises a few weeks ago.” This
was happening in other countries too, he said, though with less
media attention. “The US is often in the spotlight, but we have
also seen extraordinary heat events in northern Europe and
Siberia. This is not a localised freak event, it is definitely
part of a coherent global pattern.”</p>
<p>The far north of Europe also sweltered in record-breaking June
heat, and cities in India, Pakistan and Libya have endured
unusually high temperatures in recent weeks. Suburbs of Tokyo have
been drenched in the heaviest rainfall since measurements began
and a usual month’s worth of July rain fell on London in a day.
Events that were once in 100 years are becoming commonplace. Freak
weather is increasingly normal.</p>
<p>Some experts fear the recent jolts indicate the climate system
may have crossed a dangerous threshold. Instead of smoothly rising
temperatures and steadily increasing extremes, they are examining
whether the trend may be increasingly “nonlinear” or bumpy as a
result of knock-on effects from drought or ice melt in the Arctic.
This theory is contentious, but recent events have prompted more
discussion about this possibility and the reliability of models
based on past observations.</p>
<p>“We need to better model nonlinear events,” said Gerten. “We
scientists in recent years have been surprised by some events that
occurred earlier and were more frequent and more intense than
expected.”</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><em>This article was amended to remove an outdated regional
name.</em></p>
</li>
</ul>
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