'Climate – a warning for Europe' – The Irish Times - The Irish Times
‘Climate - a warning for Europe’ - The Irish Times
Sir, – I note your editorial “The Irish Times view on the aftermath of the Italian floods: a warning for Europe”(May 23rd). On the same page almost two years ago, you wrote: “The scale and intensity of the recent floods in Germany have shocked climate scientists” (July 22nd, 2021).
Over 200 people died in Europe in the summer of 2021, most of them in western Germany when large parts of that country was hit by by heavy, continuous rain on the night of July 15th, resulting in local flash floods that destroyed buildings and swept away cars.
Angela Merkel described the flooding as “terrifying”.
Meanwhile across the Atlantic, Fort Lauderdale airport in Florida was hit by almost 26 inches of rain in a single day on April 13th this year and had to close. The previous 24-hour rain record for Fort Lauderdale was 14.59 inches, which was set in 1979.
And in south Asia on 16 August 2018, severe floods affected the south Indian state of Kerala due to unusually high rainfall during the monsoon season. It was the worst flooding in Kerala in nearly a century. Over 483 people died when 2½ times more rain fell than is normal.
If even a fraction of these torrential rains fell anywhere along the Shannon or any of the major river valleys in this country it would be catastrophic beyond belief.
But who is going to cede their worldly privileges dare as we barrel on pumping carbon inexorably into the atmosphere that can only lead to more extreme weather events like those that happened in Italy this month? – Is mise,
TOM McELLIGOTT,
Tournageehy,
Listowel,
Co Kerry.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.