Reacción a "What is the relationship between the DANA and climate change?"

What relationship can we say that this type of event has with climate change?

‘In general terms, what we know is that, in a context of climate change, these types of intense and exceptional, rare rainfall events are going to become more frequent and more intense and, therefore, destructive.

That is in general terms. Events of this type, which used to occur many decades apart, are now becoming more frequent and their destructive capacity is greater.

Associating a particular event like this to climate change, i.e. asking the question that if we had not had climate change we would have suffered an event like this, requires a posteriori studies and can always be said in probabilistic terms, but not on the fly. This is something that will be analysed and these very destructive or very violent cases, then give rise to many studies that are done in academic and research fields'.

We can't say anything on the fly, except that in a context of climate change, these types of events will be more frequent and more intense’.

What role do warnings play in these extreme events?

‘What we have to bear in mind is that warnings are issued for relatively large areas, at the county level, and then the most extreme consequences are at the point level, often at the municipality level, and this depends on many other things that have nothing to do with precipitation.

The warnings issued by AEMET refer to precipitation, which is AEMET's responsibility. But whether that rainfall then has more or less destructive effects also depends on the orography, on rainfall upstream, on public works, on where the municipalities are located, on whether there are obstacles or not.... All of this is something very particular. Between heavy rainfall and its destructive power, there is a whole chain of actions that must also be considered'.