A shortage of data is hampering efforts to establish the role of climate change in extreme-weather events in the tropics and global south. So say an international team of scientists, who claim the current situation is a “scientific injustice” and call for more investment in climate science and weather monitoring in poorer countries.
The researchers, who are part of World Weather Attribution, have made the call after analyzing the role of climate change in an episode of torrential rain in June that triggered a landslide in Columbia. It killed 27 people and triggered devastating floods in Venezuela that displaced thousands.
Their study reported that the Colombian Andes were unusually wet from April to June, while the part of Venezuela where the floods occurred experienced its five wettest days of the year. In the curent climate, such weather events would be expected every 10 years in Colombia and every three years in Venezuela.
According to the researchers, there is a high level of uncertainty in the study due to a lack of long-term observational data in the region and high uncertainties in global climate models when assessing the tropics. Colombia and Venezuela have complex tropical climates that are under-researched, with some data even suggesting that rainfall in the region is becoming less intense.
But the group says that the possibility of heavier rainfall linked to climate change should not be ruled out in the region, particularly on shorter, sub-daily timescales, which they could not investigate. They add that Colombia and Venezuela are almost certainly facing increased heatwave, drought and wildfire risk.
Mariam Zachariah at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, who was involved with the work, says that the combination of mountains, coasts, rainforests and complex-weather systems in many tropical countries means “rainfall is varied, intense and challenging to capture in climate models”.
“Many countries with tropical climates have limited capacity to do climate science, meaning we don’t have a good understanding of how they are being affected by climate change,” says Zachariah. “Our recent study on the deadly floods in the Democratic Republic of Congo in May is another example. Once again, our results were inconclusive.”
Climate scientist Paola Andrea Arias Gómez at the Universidad of Antioquia in Colombia, who was also involved in the study, says that extreme weather is “non-stop” in Colombia and Venezuela. “One year we face devastating flash floods; the next, severe droughts and wildfires,” she adds. “Unfortunately, extreme weather is not well understood in northern South America. We urgently need more investment in climate science to understand shifting risks and prepare for what’s ahead. More science will save lives.”
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