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    Climate Change Made South Sudan Heat Wave More Likely, Study Finds

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    Years of war and food insecurity in the region made the extreme heat especially dangerous.After a blistering February heat wave in South Sudan’s capital city caused dozens of students to collapse from heat stroke, officials closed schools for two weeks. It was the second time in less than a year that the country’s schools closed to protect young people from the deadly effects of extreme heat.Climate change, largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels in rich nations, made at least one week of that heat wave 10 times as likely, and 2 degrees Celsius hotter, according to a new study by World Weather Attribution. Temperatures in some parts of the region soared above 42 degrees Celsius, or 107 degrees Fahrenheit, in the last week of February.The analysis used weather data, observations and climate models to get the results, which have not been peer reviewed but are based on standardized methods.South Sudan, in the tropical band of East Africa, was torn apart by a civil war that led to independence from Sudan in 2011. It’s also one of the countries least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that are heating up the globe. “The continent has contributed a tiny fraction of global emissions, but is bearing the brunt of climate change,” said Joyce Kimutai, a researcher at the Center for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.Heat waves are one of the deadliest extreme weather events and have become more frequent and more severe on a warming planet. But analysis methods connecting heat to mortality vary between and within countries, and death tolls can be underreported and are often unknown for months after an event.Prolonged heat is particularly dangerous for children, older adults and pregnant women. For the last three weeks, extreme heat has settled over a large region of continental Eastern Africa, including parts of Kenya and Uganda. Residents have been told to stay indoors and drink water, a difficult directive for countries where many people work outdoors, electricity is sporadic, access to clean water is difficult and modest housing means there are few cooling systems.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Study Finds Climate Change Doubled Likelihood of Recent European Floods

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      Storm Boris dumped record amounts of rain over Central and Eastern Europe this month. A new study found climate change made the deluge more likely.Europe faced catastrophic floodwaters that affected two million people earlier this month and transformed neighborhoods and urban centers into muddy rivers. At least 24 people died, and some were reported missing.That lethal deluge, known as Storm Boris, was made twice as likely by human-induced climate change, according to a new analysis by World Weather Attribution, an international group of scientists and meteorologists who study the role of climate change in extreme weather events.The storm dropped 7 to 20 percent more rain than a similar one would have in a preindustrial world, before humans started burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases that have increased global temperatures.The world is heating up quickly: 2023 was the warmest year on record, and 2024 could still surpass it, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In the simplest terms, warmer air holds more moisture that contributes to more intense and frequent rainfall.More than a half-dozen countries in Europe — including Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Romania, Hungary, Germany and Slovakia — saw record-breaking amounts of rain between Sept. 12 and Sept 15. The slow-moving, low-pressure system dumped up to five times September’s average rainfall over those four days. The floodwaters led to power cuts and the closure of schools, factories and hospitals.But it was only one of many flooding events that have wreaked havoc across the world in recent months.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Deadly Landslides in India Made Worse by Climate Change, Study Finds

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      Extreme rainfall made 10 percent heavier by human-caused climate change triggered landslides that killed hundreds, according to a new study.A sudden burst of rainfall on July 30 caused a cascade of landslides that buried hundreds of people in the mountainous Kerala region of southern India.That downpour was 10 percent heavier because of human-caused climate change, according to a study by World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists who quantify how climate change can influence extreme weather. Nearly six inches, or 150 millimeters, of rain fell on soils already highly saturated from two months of monsoon and marked the third highest single-day rain event on record for India.“The devastation in northern Kerala is concerning not only because of the difficult humanitarian situation faced by thousands today, but also because this disaster occurred in a continually warming world,” said Maja Vahlberg, a climate risk consultant at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. “The increase in climate-change-driven rainfall found in this study is likely to increase the number of landslides that could be triggered in the future.”In a state that is highly prone to landslides, the Wayanad district is considered the riskiest part. As of Tuesday, at least 231 people had died and 100 remained missing.The Kerala landslides were the second extreme landslide event in July, following one in Ethiopia that killed 257 people. July was the second-worst month on record, after July 2019, with 95 landslide events that caused 1,167 fatalities, according to data maintained by Dave Petley, the vice-chancellor of the University of Hull. Together, they caused roughly one-third of the more than 3,600 deaths resulting from some 429 fatal landslides recorded this year, Dr. Petley said in an email.Already, 2024 is an outlier, Dr. Petley posted to The Landslide Blog on Tuesday. He wrote that he could “only speculate on the likely underlying reasons for this very high incidence of fatal landslides,” but “the most likely cause continues to be the exceptionally high global surface temperatures, and the resultant increase in high intensity rainfall events.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More