Norway hit by hurricane-force winds: Is climate change making Europe’s extreme storms worse?

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Norway is being rocked by the most powerful storm in more than 30 years, leaving some residents without power this morning.

Hurricane-force winds reaching 180 kilometers per hour hit the central region of the country particularly hard yesterday, leading to flooding and widespread traffic disruptions.

The storm, named Ingan by Norwegian meteorologists, developed from an extremely powerful jet stream moving across the Atlantic Ocean. The “explosive deepening of the area of ​​low pressure” hit the Scandinavian country from Wednesday afternoon, Met Office official Aidan McGivern said. explained.

“Norway “We’re used to windy weather and deep low-pressure systems, but this is different,” he added. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute has issued a red alert, the highest level of alert. Ingan is the strongest storm since the 1992 New Year’s Hurricane.

Britain was completely spared the brunt of Storm Ingan last week after experiencing its 10th named storm of the season. Storm Jocelyn Storm Isha, which reached speeds of 156 kilometers per hour, was followed by intense heat.

Naturally, the UK, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and many other European countries hit by the storm will wonder if climate change is partly to blame.

Are there more storms due to climate change?

A Met Office spokeswoman told Euronews Green last week, referring to the alphabetical list used to name storms in the UK, that it was “at this stage the farthest list we have ever looked at”. ” he admitted. But storms only started being named in 2015, so this isn’t the best way to measure the effects of climate change.

“This is a very complex issue and it’s not as simple as: [the] increases in frequency heat wave “This damage is occurring in the UK as a result of human-induced climate change,” they added.

Since 2015, the UK has experienced an average of six to seven storms a year. The first winter after we started naming her, Storm Katie was 11 years old and awesome. The 2023/24 season could be much higher than that, but in the scheme of things it doesn’t matter that much. The winter of 2013/14 was the wettest on record and the stormiest in the past 20 years.

recently climate, the Met Office says there is no evidence of a positive or negative trend in the number or intensity of storms. Trends in the number of storms are difficult to detect because they naturally change from year to year and decade to decade.

According to most climate projections, this situation is about to change. Scientists predict that the number of winter storms in the UK and other European countries will increase slightly in the coming years.

Attribution studies can show how likely and intense a particular weather event was due to climate change. However, storms tend not to be prioritized in this type of scrutiny.

Why are there so many storms this year?

The factors that cause storm formation and maintenance are complex. One of the main propulsion forces is a powerful jet stream. This is the center of strong winds that blow from east to west across the Atlantic Ocean, about 10 km above the Earth’s surface.

It is affected by the temperature difference between the polar regions and the equator. In the last few weeks, bitter cold arctic wind It caused a greater contrast and resulted in a stronger jet stream.

As a result, areas of low and high pressure form near the surface, resulting in stormy weather.

of El Niño Meteorologists say weather events are also playing a role, similar to the period from 2014 to 2016 when the UK was hit by so many storms.

Warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean brought on by El Niño are having ripple effects around the world.in nordicthere is usually more rain and wind at the beginning of winter, and temperatures drop towards the end.

The relationship between this naturally occurring climate phase and the climate crisis is the subject of ongoing scientific research. But scientists have found that as the climate warms, the effects of El Niño are becoming stronger, or even more so. Abnormal weather.

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Is climate change making UK storms worse?

As with frequency, meteorologists are cautious about declaring that storms are becoming stronger as a result of rising temperatures.

But it’s clear climate change There are many ways to make the storm more impactful.

First, the crisis is influencing the increase in rainfall seen in extreme events. Storm Ciaran in November.

“The reason is that for every degree of temperature rise we experience, the atmosphere can hold 7% more water vapor, increasing the likelihood of heavy rainfall associated with rainfall events. “It’s possible,” said Dr. Melissa Lazenby, a lecturer at the university. She presented on climate change at the University of Sussex.

The impact of storm surges and high waves on coastal areas is also expected to worsen in the future. sea ​​level rise.

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And experts say the following about strength: “When a storm forms, there’s more energy in the atmosphere, so the storm is likely to be more intense,” said Claire Nasir, a senior broadcast meteorologist at the Met Office. “We know the Earth is warming, but it’s heat energy. And that heat energy is transferred into the atmosphere in a variety of ways, including storms.”

Ben Clark, a global climate attribution researcher at Imperial College London, said: “Climate change is warming both the oceans and the atmosphere, creating more fuel for storms to form and intensify. “Heavy rainfall is increasing.” Before he told us.

How are storms named in Europe?

European countries group together to track and name extreme weather events. For the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands, storm names are determined by the Met Office, Met Eireann and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) respectively.

Storms are named alphabetically, avoiding the letters Q, U, X, Y, or Z, to comply with international standards. The names are based on a list published at the beginning of each season in September, usually alternating between male and female choices.

The public can also submit names, and some will be chosen by government agencies to honor respected climate experts and scientists.

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these weather hero They include Ciaran Fearon, a Northern Ireland Department of Infrastructure official working closely with local communities to keep people safe. and Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, an astrophysicist who discovered the first radio pulsar in 1967.

The next name on the list is Kathleen, and this post, also from Ireland, mentions two women, Kathleen McNulty and Kathleen Lonsdale, a computer programmer and a crystallographer, respectively.

However, forecasters are currently predicting a mild weather pattern for early February, so it could be a while before the storm’s namesake shows up.

Norway, Sweden and Denmark name storm as separate northern storm group.

Why do storms have names?

“When you name a storm, you can soften it.” Bad weather communication It makes it clear when people may be affected by the weather,” said Will Lang, head of situational awareness at the Bureau of Meteorology. explained.

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There are no strict criteria that the three agencies apply to name storms. They consider the potential impact of a storm system, assessing whether it is likely to cause flooding, for example.

And as meteorologists look toward a stormier future, they are making clear that broader climate adaptation is also needed.

“The message is that we have to start working forward-looking, because basically, whether it’s extreme in one way or extreme in another, this situation is not going away,” Nasir said. To tell. That was 30 years ago. ”