Is climate change to blame for Spain's deadly floods?

More than 150 people have died in southern and eastern Spain after devastating flash floods. That number is likely to rise as the search continues for dozens of missing people and some regions have yet to report casualties. On top of that, more rain is expected to hit some of the most affected parts of the country, it reports Euronews.

Some areas received the equivalent of a year's worth of rain in just eight hours on Tuesday. Spain's National State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) says the Chica area of ​​Valencia has accumulated an "extraordinary" 491 liters per square meter in just a third of the day.

As a result of the deadly floods, people were left trapped in their homes, cars were swept away and bridges were torn from their foundations.

"This is the dramatic reality of climate change. And we must prepare to tackle it across our Union and with all the tools at our disposal," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, adding that extreme climate events had become "the new normal".

Is climate change to blame for Valencia's deadly floods?

"Images and videos from southeastern Spain show the power of water at its most furious. Unfortunately, these are no longer rare occurrences. Climate change is changing the structure of our weather systems, creating conditions where intense thunderstorms stall over a region, leading to record rainfall – a pattern we see time and time again,” said Dr Linda Speight, a lecturer in the School of Geography and Environment of Oxford University.

Climate scientists and meteorologists blamed the flooding on something called a "discontinuous low-pressure storm system" that migrated from an unusually wavy, stalled jet stream. This system then gets "stuck" over the region, dumping huge amounts of rain in a very short time. This is a natural weather event that usually hits Spain in the fall and winter. This phenomenon is so common that it has its own acronym – DANA.

Unusually warm sea surface temperatures, most likely due to human-caused climate change, as well as a warming atmosphere, directly affect how much rain these storms can pick up.

"Without a doubt, these explosive rains were enhanced by climate change. With every fraction of a degree of warming due to fossil fuels, the atmosphere can hold more moisture, leading to more precipitation. These deadly floods are yet another reminder of how dangerous climate change is already at just 1,3°C warming," explains Dr Friederike Otto, head of the Environmental Policy Center at Imperial College London.

Otto points out that just last week the UN warned that the world is on track to generate up to 3,1°C of warming by the end of the century.

“At COP29, global leaders really need to agree not just to reduce, but to end the burning of fossil fuels with an end date. The longer the world postpones the replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy, the more serious and frequent extreme climate events will become," he is emphatic.

Could Valencia have been better prepared for extreme weather?

Local authorities were criticized for not warning in time about the potential dangers of the storm. Valencia's government admitted it had only sent text messages warning residents of the disaster, eight hours after the flooding was first reported and 10 hours after AEMET issued an "extreme danger" warning in the region.

That brief message, sent shortly after 20pm on Tuesday, came too late for many who were already trapped in their homes, shops or cars on the streets when the deadly floodwaters hit.

Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, said it was "appalling" to see so many people die in floods in Europe when forecasters had predicted extreme rainfall and issued warnings.

"The tragedies of people dying in cars and being swept onto the streets could have been completely avoided if people had been kept away from the rising waters. This suggests that the system to warn people about the dangers of flooding in Valencia has failed with fatal effect. It's clear that people just don't know what to do when they're faced with a flood or when they hear warnings," explains Professor Cloke.