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The association of these floods purely with climate change seems like a stretch to me. Storms cause floods all the time and once in a century is pretty standard

The association of these floods purely with climate change seems like a stretch to me. Storms cause floods all the time and once in a century is pretty standard. Most of these precede industrialization and were caused by storms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floods_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floods_in_Europe

wavesounds 5y ago
Nobody is arguing its "purely" caused by climate change but it seems pretty clear that climate change is making all of these things happen more frequently and intensely than they used to.
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  > Nobody is arguing its "purely" caused by climate change The article definitely takes that position, at least implicitly. Half of the text is about climate change.
  - mikeg8 5y ago
    > Many factors contribute to flooding, but a warming atmosphere caused by climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely. Do you see anything wrong with that statement? Seems pretty accurate to me...
    - ceilingcorner 5y ago
      Yes, that single sentence is definitely accurate. The rest of the article assumes that it's unquestionably true.
- the-dude 5y ago
  Do you have the numbers to back that up?
  - lhorie 5y ago
    https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-climate-change-affects-extreme-weather-around-the-world https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-climate-change-affect... is a decent place to start looking
lhorie 5y ago
It's not purely associated w/ it, the article says as much: > Many factors contribute to flooding, but a warming atmosphere caused by climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely To make an argument that climate change isn't a factor, I'd imagine one would need to look at the expected frequency of getting record breaking floods, fires and other extreme events worldwide simultaneously.
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  The rest of the article ignores that statement. > To make an argument that climate change isn't a factor, I'd imagine one would need to look at the expected frequency of getting record breaking floods, fires and other extreme events worldwide simultaneously. You have it backwards. To prove that climate change is a factor, you need to do these things. Storms causing floods that kill people precede industrialization.
  - lhorie 5y ago
    No, to say that climate change is a factor, you just need a non-zero correlation between climate change and any of these events (i.e. even if it only causes a 0.1% increase in weather variability and that contributes to an increase of only 5M galons of water in a flood, it is still a factor). And peer reviewed studies are plenty and they do support the idea that a strong correlation does exist across many types of extreme weather events. If you want to argue that carbon offsets don't have as much direct impact on specific problems (floods, fires, whatever), sure, that's a valid question about resource prioritization, but the theme I keep hearing is that these things keep getting worse year after year and that in a lot of cases it's no longer at a scale small enough for infrastructure projects to even be feasible anymore.
kuschku 5y ago
It’s interesting that this is the fourth "once in a century" flood in Germany since 2000. That’s where climate change comes in: In the past, we had one "once in a century" flood per century.
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  Does "once in a century" have any scientific meaning? Because if you look at the link, far more people died in the past from flooding. 10,000 per flood vs. 100 today. Whether that is because the floods were larger or because we had less robust engineering is unknown.
  - mikeg8 5y ago
    Another explanation for lower casualties is modern communications. How did people in the past know to evacuate prior to modern meteorology and real-time communications? Had there been less warning of this event, the #s dead may well have been in the thousands.
    - lhorie 5y ago
      Indeed. One commenter below mentioned family getting evacuated in anticipation. Also worth noting this event is still ongoing, so the "at least 120" number is likely lowballing.
  - abc_lisper 5y ago
    I think it does. Insurance companies use it to calculate the monthly payments. I am sure they are well quantized.
  - Someone 5y ago
    Unfair comparison. The large ones of those (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floods_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floods_in_Europe) all were flooding of coastal areas by sea water. This is flooding by rainwater in mountainous regions.
- rad_gruchalski 5y ago

wavesounds 5y ago

Nobody is arguing its "purely" caused by climate change but it seems pretty clear that climate change is making all of these things happen more frequently and intensely than they used to.

ceilingcorner 5y ago
> Nobody is arguing its "purely" caused by climate change The article definitely takes that position, at least implicitly. Half of the text is about climate change.
- mikeg8 5y ago
  > Many factors contribute to flooding, but a warming atmosphere caused by climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely. Do you see anything wrong with that statement? Seems pretty accurate to me...
  - ceilingcorner 5y ago
    Yes, that single sentence is definitely accurate. The rest of the article assumes that it's unquestionably true.
the-dude 5y ago
Do you have the numbers to back that up?
- lhorie 5y ago
  https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-climate-change-affects-extreme-weather-around-the-world https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-how-climate-change-affect... is a decent place to start looking

lhorie 5y ago

It's not purely associated w/ it, the article says as much: > Many factors contribute to flooding, but a warming atmosphere caused by climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely To make an argument that climate change isn't a factor, I'd imagine one would need to look at the expected frequency of getting record breaking floods, fires and other extreme events worldwide simultaneously.

ceilingcorner 5y ago
The rest of the article ignores that statement. > To make an argument that climate change isn't a factor, I'd imagine one would need to look at the expected frequency of getting record breaking floods, fires and other extreme events worldwide simultaneously. You have it backwards. To prove that climate change is a factor, you need to do these things. Storms causing floods that kill people precede industrialization.
- lhorie 5y ago
  No, to say that climate change is a factor, you just need a non-zero correlation between climate change and any of these events (i.e. even if it only causes a 0.1% increase in weather variability and that contributes to an increase of only 5M galons of water in a flood, it is still a factor). And peer reviewed studies are plenty and they do support the idea that a strong correlation does exist across many types of extreme weather events. If you want to argue that carbon offsets don't have as much direct impact on specific problems (floods, fires, whatever), sure, that's a valid question about resource prioritization, but the theme I keep hearing is that these things keep getting worse year after year and that in a lot of cases it's no longer at a scale small enough for infrastructure projects to even be feasible anymore.

kuschku 5y ago

It’s interesting that this is the fourth "once in a century" flood in Germany since 2000. That’s where climate change comes in: In the past, we had one "once in a century" flood per century.

ceilingcorner 5y ago
Does "once in a century" have any scientific meaning? Because if you look at the link, far more people died in the past from flooding. 10,000 per flood vs. 100 today. Whether that is because the floods were larger or because we had less robust engineering is unknown.
- mikeg8 5y ago
  Another explanation for lower casualties is modern communications. How did people in the past know to evacuate prior to modern meteorology and real-time communications? Had there been less warning of this event, the #s dead may well have been in the thousands.
  - lhorie 5y ago
    Indeed. One commenter below mentioned family getting evacuated in anticipation. Also worth noting this event is still ongoing, so the "at least 120" number is likely lowballing.
- abc_lisper 5y ago
  I think it does. Insurance companies use it to calculate the monthly payments. I am sure they are well quantized.
- Someone 5y ago
  Unfair comparison. The large ones of those (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floods_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floods_in_Europe) all were flooding of coastal areas by sea water. This is flooding by rainwater in mountainous regions.
rad_gruchalski 5y ago