Climate change worsens rainfall and floods, killing dozens in southern Africa: study

Johannesburg– Human-caused climate change has worsened the situation, as recent torrential rains and floods devastated parts of southern Africa, killing more than 100 people and displacing over 300,000, researchers said Thursday.

A study by World Weather Attribution showed that the region of South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe received a year’s worth of rain in just a 10-day period, analysing the recent heavy rainfall and severe flooding.

It resulted in millions of dollars of widespread damage to housing and infrastructure and countless human suffering, including loss of life.

Many homes and buildings in Mozambique were completely submerged under water, while roads and bridges were washed away in the South African provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga and parts of Zimbabwe.

The study examines the impact of climate change on severe weather patterns and events.

Scientists from around the world conducted the study using peer-reviewed methods to assess the impact of climate change on severe weather patterns and events.

The study shows that data from recent rainfall, whose rare intensity occurs about once every 50 years, confirms a “clear move towards more violent rainfall.”

This was also linked to the current La Niña weather phenomenon, which naturally brings wet conditions to the Southern Africa region but was now operating in a much warmer environment.

“Our analysis clearly shows that our burning of fossil fuels is not only increasing the intensity of extreme precipitation but also making the number of events that could otherwise occur more severe,” said Izzin Pinto, a senior climate researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

Pinto, a co-author of the study, said the climate models used are struggling to explain how much worse the recent floods were due to climate change, but that a 40% increase in rainfall intensity would be impossible to explain without human-caused climate change.

“This means that what would have already been a severe period of heavy rainfall has turned into even more violent flooding that communities are ill-equipped to deal with,” he said.

The affected areas of southern Africa are no strangers to heavy rain and flooding, but the magnitude of recent events has scientists worried.

“This event was a surprise for us because we had experienced previous events 25 years ago in which the same areas flooded,” said Bernardino Nhantumbo, a researcher at the Mozambique Meteorological Service.

“There are places where the expected rainfall for the entire rainy season has been recorded in two to three days, so it was very challenging to adjust to any given situation.”

According to Nhantumbo, Mozambique is in the flow of nine international rivers, so when such an event occurs, there is the potential for significant damage, not only due to heavy rainfall but also due to stream flow.

“We make accurate forecasts using various models, but these events can still cause damage despite having good predictions,” he said.

Central and southern parts of Mozambique were hardest hit, with Gaza’s provincial capital, Xai-Xai, and the nearby city of Chokwe largely inundated.

The researchers also called for the development of climate models in Africa to better understand the dynamics and extent of climate change impacts in different regions of the continent.

According to Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at the Center for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, the lack of developed climate models in Africa was part of the reason most models had difficulty capturing how much worse the recent floods were due to climate change.

“We have developed all the freely available climate models outside of Africa. They have all been developed within climate modelling centres in the US, Europe and some in Asia.

“But there is not a single climate model that has been developed for Africa. Because of this, they are generally designed to get the best climate for the regions they are built for, and this is true for all models,” he said.