Pinning down blame for complex weather events isn't straightforward. But cutting-edge science is rapidly shrinking the space to argue that the crazy weather we're experiencing isn't due to greenhouse gas emissions.
By Ruby Russell
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In March, the European Academies' Science Advisory Council published a report urging the European Union to up its climate adaptation efforts.
Scientists used data from insurance company Munich Re to show that storms and events such as floods and droughts — and the costs resulting from them — have been on the rise since 1980.
The report's author, Michael Norton, admits the data is not perfect. He points out that more events get reported now, so older figures may be low. Also, the assets at risk will have changed — for example through increased building on floodplains.
But the trend of extreme events happening more frequently as greenhouse gas emissions accumulate in our atmosphere "is pretty obvious."
This becomes clear from comparing their frequency with other natural disasters, such as earthquakes, which remains stable.
"The data from the insurance industry shows that there is significant increase in the number of claims of climate-related events — whereas there is no change in the number of claims to those which are related to geophysical things, which are not related to climate," Norton told DW.
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