Central Texas has seen about a 20% increase in the amount of rain falling in the heaviest events since 1970, a trend mirrored across the US and globally, according to Kristina Dahl, vice president for science at Climate Central, a non-profit, independent science organization.
“As our climate warms, the atmosphere can hold more moisture, which makes it more likely to experience extreme rains like this that are occurring in these short periods of time,” Dahl told CNN’s Lynda Kinkade.
“Obviously the loss of life here really indicates how unprepared we are as a nation for disasters of this scale, let alone the scale that’s to come with continued warming of our planet.”
Dahl pointed to the Gulf of Mexico’s unusually warm surface temperatures as a key contributor to the storm’s intensity.
“That is causing this very warm, wet system of air that enables a devastating amount of rain to fall in central Texas,” she noted.
Funding cuts to disaster response and weather services such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) may hinder both immediate response and long-term forecasting capabilities, Dahl said.
“We need these critical people to be keeping us safe 24 hours a day in every one of these offices across the country,” she said.
“Forecasting a storm like this one … Where exactly is the heaviest rain going to fall? How is it going to translate from rain into flooding? These are extremely challenging problems scientifically.”
