Otto, F.E.L. orcid.org/0000-0001-8166-5917, Zachariah, M., Saeed, F. orcid.org/0000-0003-1899-9118 et al. (23 more authors) (2023) Climate change increased extreme monsoon rainfall, flooding highly vulnerable communities in Pakistan. Environmental Research: Climate, 2 (2). 025001. ISSN 2752-5295
Abstract
As a direct consequence of extreme monsoon rainfall throughout the summer 2022 season Pakistan experienced the worst flooding in its history. We employ a probabilistic event attribution methodology as well as a detailed assessment of the dynamics to understand the role of climate change in this event. Many of the available state-of-the-art climate models struggle to simulate these rainfall characteristics. Those that pass our evaluation test generally show a much smaller change in likelihood and intensity of extreme rainfall than the trend we found in the observations. This discrepancy suggests that long-term variability, or processes that our evaluation may not capture, can play an important role, rendering it infeasible to quantify the overall role of human-induced climate change. However, the majority of models and observations we have analysed show that intense rainfall has become heavier as Pakistan has warmed. Some of these models suggest climate change could have increased the rainfall intensity up to 50%. The devastating impacts were also driven by the proximity of human settlements, infrastructure (homes, buildings, bridges), and agricultural land to flood plains, inadequate infrastructure, limited ex-ante risk reduction capacity, an outdated river management system, underlying vulnerabilities driven by high poverty rates and socioeconomic factors (e.g. gender, age, income, and education), and ongoing political and economic instability. Both current conditions and the potential further increase in extreme peaks in rainfall over Pakistan in light of anthropogenic climate change, highlight the urgent need to reduce vulnerability to extreme weather in Pakistan.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Climate-Related Exposures and Conditions; Climate Action |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Geography (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 21 Mar 2023 16:21 |
Last Modified: | 21 Mar 2023 16:21 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/2752-5295/acbfd5 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | IOP Publishing |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1088/2752-5295/acbfd5 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:197534 |
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