Human-caused climate change worsened floods that have killed hundreds of people and displaced millions in Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Sudan this year, according to a study published on Wednesday.
A new analysis by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) network of scientists found warming driven by the use of fossil fuels had exacerbated the flooding in Sudan.
The researchers also said climate change would have made this year’s torrential rains around five to 20 percent more intense across the Niger and Lake Chad basins, citing a previous WWA study of similar floods in 2022.
“This is only going to keep getting worse if we keep burning fossil fuels,” said Clair Barnes from the Center for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.
Speaking at a briefing ahead of the study’s publication, she said such downpours “could happen every year” if global temperatures increase by 2˚C (3.6˚F) above pre-industrial levels.
“It’s pretty serious,” she said.
At the current 1.3˚C of warming, they said similar periods of rainfall are expected to occur on average about once every three years, and have become about 10% heavier due to climate change.