Climate crisis making Britain wetter as greenhouse gases fuel ‘extreme’ changes in rainfall

Changing rainfall patterns across Europe can be linked to the climate crisis for the first time, scientists have said.

Human-made greenhouse gas emissions are directly responsible for countries in Europe getting wetter in the winter while the Mediterranean region dries out, they concluded in a new study.

Climate change is also contributing to increases in "extreme rainfall events" according to a Met Office study published the Journal of Climate.

Scientists said the heating of the Earth was sending more moisture into the atmosphere, resulting in increasing amounts of rain.

For every 1C of warming the atmosphere can hold between 6 and 7 per cent more moisture, they said.

This has a significant impact on rainfall patterns across the globe and adds to extreme rainfall events.

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Observations showed that there has been a pattern of increasing seasonal rainfall north of the Mediterranean basin and decreases in southernmost Europe.

This pattern is stronger and more widespread in winter, and weaker in summer when Eastern and Western Europe also experience dry conditions. These patterns are best understood visually, as shown in the maps below, where the red colours show drying and blue colours show increased rainfall between 1901 and 2018.

Met Office scientists used computer modelling to compare scenarios under a nature climate (where human influene is removed), a climate influenced by aerosols, a climate influenced by greenhouse gas emissions and a climate influenced by both greenhouse gas emissions and aerosols.

They said this methology had made it possible to show for the first time that greenhouse gas emissions are the driving force behind changing trends in rainfall patterns in Europe through the winter months.

Dr Nikos Christidis, a Met Office scientist and lead author of the study, said: “For the first time we have been able to isolate the fingerprint of human induced climate change as the lead influence on changing rainfall patterns across Europe in winter.

“With this clear identification of the role of greenhouse gasses, this study provides further evidence that changes to our rainfall patterns in Europe will continue as our atmosphere warms.”