So-called ‘supercell thunderstorms’ — incredibly intense phenomena that bring hurricane-force winds, hail, torrential rain and often tornadoes — will become more frequent in Europe as the Earth continues to warm. This is the conclusion of a study published in Science Advances, which indicates that the increase could reach 11% in a scenario where temperatures rise by 3°C.
Storm surges, one-off events associated with storms that can cause flooding, are rare and highly destructive phenomena. A paper published this week in Nature finds that they have increased since 1960, comparable to the increase in average sea level rise over the same period.
The authors, led by Spaniard Francisco Calafat of the National Oceanography Centre in Liverpool, UK, statistically analyse observations of extreme tides from 79 tide gauges on European coasts over the period 1960-2018, and compare them with climate models.
Their results point to an increase in extreme sea levels in the future, something the authors say has implications for coastal planning. So far, the most widely accepted hypothesis is that the frequency of such extreme storm surges would not increase.