Communities across southern Germany have been forced to evacuate, and many have issued states of emergency as severe flooding hit the region this weekend.
It follows days of unrelenting rainfall: Initial assessments suggest some places experienced more in 24 hours than the average for an entire month. Numerous streams and rivers have burst their banks, flooding entire towns and villages, with the states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg particularly impacted.
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Climate change made the rainfall that led to devastating floods across Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands in summer 2021 between 3% and 19% stronger, and 1.2 to nine times more likely, according to a 2021 study published by a group of international scientists from the World Weather Attribution.
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"Governments and municipalities need to improve flood defences and other measures to deal with increasingly extreme weather - but it is far cheaper and safer to cut emissions and halt climate change, rather than only to try to adapt to the consequences," said Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at Grantham Institute – Climate Change and Environment, based at Imperial College London.