When professor Dieter Gerten learned that his home village was one of many hit with torrential rains and severe flooding this week, he was devastated, but not entirely surprised. For Gerten, a working group leader at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the deadly floods that swept through the streets of western Europe this week were the latest sign of the crises humanity will face in the years ahead.“These sorts of events are totally what is expected due to climate projections for the past 30 years, which have said there will be a higher intensity and frequency of heat waves, of droughts and of strong rain events,” he told NBC News. Gerten acknowledged it was "not easy or possible to link a single event to climate change.” However, he said, it was “possible to link a series of events, as well as the increasing frequency and the increasing intensity.”Pointing to the recent record-breaking deadly heat wave that affected parts of the western United States and Canada earlier this month, he said the frequency of such weather events could increase if the global community does not do more to combat climate change. Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politicsGerten's village, Oberkail, is part of the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate that has borne the brunt of much of the flooding in Germany. The heavy rains caused riverbanks to burst, turning streets into wild waterways that overturned vehicles and reduced houses to rubble. Storms in neighboring Belgium have also caused deadly flooding, while Luxembourg and the Netherlands were also hit with heavy downpours. At least 120 people have been killed and hundreds remain unaccounted for in the flooding. Experts have cautioned that it is too soon to directly blame the floods on climate change, but the science is clear that such disasters could become more common due to its impact. German politicians, including President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, have nonetheless called for greater efforts to combat global warming.“Only if we decisively take up the fight against climate change will we be able to limit the extreme weather conditions we are now experiencing,” he said Friday. Environment Minister Svenja Schulze also tweeted that climate change had "arrived in Germany.""The events show with what force the consequences of climate change can affect us all, and how important it is for us to adjust to extreme weather events in the future," she said. Other politicians, including Armin Laschet, the conservative candidate hoping to replace Angela Merkel in Germany's September election, have also called for action. Calling the disaster an "extreme event," Andreas Friedrich, a German weather service spokesperson, said the affected areas saw "very severe precipitation," with the amount of rainfall usually expected across two months. However, he said, the degree of devastation had as much to do with where the downpour hit as the rain itself."This is a special situation," he said.
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Article Link: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/europe/deadly-floods-shook-europe-it-ready-future-climate-change-related-n1274158
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