Madrid — Scientists from several Spanish universities have for the first time attributed a giant hail stormwhich occurred in the province of Girona (in northeastern Spain) in August 2022, to the effects of climate change.
The combination of a marine heat wave and anthropogenic climate change contributed “decisively” to the giant hail storm – up to 12 cm – that occurred on August 30, 2022 in the province of Girona, researchers from the Complutense universities have concluded. from Madrid (UCM), Valladolid (UVA) and Pablo de Olavide from Seville (UPO).
Through numerical simulations, Researchers have established for the first time a direct relationship between climate change and this type of phenomenathe Complutense University reported today.
Specifically, they point out that The development of a supercell – an immense, damaging rotating storm – was aided by an unprecedented amount of convective energy.the “fuel” that fuels the formation of these supercells in the atmosphere, which resulted in greater severity of the storm, encouraging the formation of giant hail.
The storm, which seriously affected the Baix Empordà region of Catalonia, left in its wake significant material damage to vehicles, roofs and crop fields, numerous injuries and the first direct fatality due to hail in Europe in the last 20 years.
“Study provides greater understanding of extreme hail events, and highlights the need for action to address climate change and mitigate its impacts, which can be devastating in the most vulnerable communities,” highlighted Mariano Sastre, researcher at the Department of Earth Physics and Astrophysics at the UCM.
To carry out the study, whose conclusions have been published in Geophysical Research Lettersthe researchers carried out two types of numerical simulations: the first with current conditions and, secondly, others that reproduced the conditions of the pre-industrial level, the indicator of global temperature before the Industrial Revolution, considered as the beginning of systematic and persistent emissions of greenhouse gases of anthropogenic origin.
This level is used as a reference for quantify the impact of these emissions and the consequent effects of global warmingthe researchers recalled, and assured that, with pre-industrial conditions, the model provided hail sizes much smaller than those actually recorded.
The results also shed light on the importance of the marine heat wave – an event in which the temperature of an entire sea or much of an ocean is much higher than usual – in creating a “convective” environment conducive to the formation of giant hail.
“Aside from anthropogenic forcing, when the effect of the marine heat wave was also removed from the simulations, a notable reduction in convective environments favorable for giant hail formation was observed.”Sastre explained.
The next steps of the research point to the need to delve deeper into the complex interactions between extreme weather events and anthropogenic climate change.
Furthermore, among the next goals of the researchers is try to contribute to designing a warning protocol so that meteorological services can alert the population in timein the event that a new similar event occurs in the future.