On Monday and Tuesday, May 11 and 12, several storms with rain and strong wind rumbled across Serbia.
In Belgrade, heavy rainfall on May 12 paralyzed traffic in several places and caused flooding in the Borča neighborhood, while hail also fell in several other cities, including Kragujevac, Trstenik and Vrnjačka Banja. Agricultural damage will still be assessed, writes Nikola Zdravković for the Klima 101 portal.
But although we are used to describing such events as sudden and unexpected, their increasingly frequent occurrence is actually a predicted consequence of climate change.
As stated in the Adaptation Program to Changed Climate Conditions, the share of extreme precipitation in Serbia has doubled compared to the middle of the 20th century. What does that mean?
If we look at the total amount of precipitation during the year in Serbia, the precipitation from extreme events - typically during the day when 30 or more millimeters of rain falls - makes up a relatively small share.
In the past, that share, at the level of Serbia, was 2,4%. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, it has risen to 5,6%.
Precipitation is less uniform.
Although the total amount of annual precipitation has remained relatively stable, its regime has changed. Compared to the former normal, precipitation is less uniform, and the culprit for this is climate change.
Namely, in our climate, climate changes have already greatly increased the frequency and intensity of droughts. At the same time, with the increase in recorded temperatures, the average amount of water vapor in the air also increases: the classic rule of physics states that there is 7% more water vapor in the air for every 1 °C.
Since water vapor functions as a "fuel" for storms, the consequence of warming is a changed precipitation regime: in Serbia today we have more frequent and intense droughts, which are interrupted by more frequent and intense episodes of extreme precipitation.
The stormy weather of May 11 and 12 was a relatively mild example of increased risks in Serbia: hail threatening agriculture, floods and unstable watercourses, increased danger to human health and lives are just some examples of our vulnerability to changes in precipitation regimes.
As well as the increased risks of droughts, these risks can also be mitigated - from the improvement of early warning systems to the financing of hail protection, the improvement of urban and coastal infrastructure...
As such events will become more frequent in the future as the average temperature rises, the first step we must all take is to recognize that these storms are not just "disasters", but predicted consequences of climate change that require systemic responses from us.
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