- Drought reduces Amazon River in Colombia by as much as 90%: report
- Athletics pay emotional farewell to Oakland in last home game before move
- Stay or go? Pacific Islanders face climate's grim choice
- Americans sweep four-balls to grab 5-0 lead at Presidents Cup
- Armenian PM says peace with Azerbaijan 'within reach'
- 'Stir crazy' McKeown breaks 100m backstroke short-course world record
- Ten-man Spurs cruise in Europa League opener despite Son injury scare
- Iran shows 'willingness' to re-engage on nuclear issue: IAEA chief to AFP
- Somali-Canadian rapper K'naan accused of sexual asault
- Harris slams Ukraine 'surrender' policy as Zelensky visits White House
- Florida bracing for 'unsurvivable' Hurricane Helene
- Teenager seeking to halt Ohtani 50-50 ball auction
- Poverty rises to over 52 percent in Milei's Argentina
- Packers clash awaits for 'late developer' Darnold
- Israel pours cold water on US-backed call for ceasefire with Hezbollah
- Zelensky meets Biden after US unveils Ukraine military aid surge
- Champagne houses abuzz over English sparkling wine
- Eric Adams, New York's criminally charged mayor of 'swagger'
- Ten Hag says lack of goals Manchester United's biggest problem
- Emotional Almodovar wins lifetime award at San Sebastian festival
- Putin rachets up nuclear rhetoric, but is he ready to act?
- Former MVP Derrick Rose retires from NBA
- England's Hull out of Pakistan tour
- US urges pressure on Venezuela's Maduro after disputed vote
- US announces new half billion dollars for Syria aid
- Lawson to replace Ricciardo at RB F1 team for rest of season
- New York mayor charged with years of bribery, fraud
- Hurricanes, storms, typhoons... Is September wetter than usual?
- Myanmar junta invites armed groups to stop fighting, start talks
- Argentina change seven of team that beat Springboks for rematch
- Marsh adamant Australia have 'moved on' from Lord's row
- Monet's odes to London's 'beautiful' smog appear in city
- Pakistan braces for 'transitional pain' as IMF approves $7 bn loan
- Van Gogh painting falls short of expectations in Hong Kong auction
- Potts glad to learn from England great Anderson
- Palestinian leader calls for world to stop sending Israel weapons
- Macron meets Trudeau in Canada as both face political setbacks
- Dyche says Everton takeover should bring 'stability'
- 'The last straw': gang-plagued Ecuador now fighting record fires
- Italy and Britain tied after Louis Vuitton Cup final day one
- Survivor of Mexican mass disappearance fights for truth
- Russia in weapon transfer talks with Yemen's Huthis: US envoy to AFP
- West Ham boss Lopetegui jokingly rules himself out after calf injury
- Kenya to complete full deployment to Haiti by January: president
- France's Jegou makes rugby training return despite rape allegation
- Melania Trump opens up about attempts on ex-president's life
- Family urges UK govt to secure release of Egyptian dissident
- Mallorca fan sentenced after racist abuse of Vinicius, Chukwueze
- Far-right lawmakers nominate Musk for top EU rights award
- Tired, traumatised Lebanese fear new Israel-Hezbollah war
Hurricanes, storms, typhoons... Is September wetter than usual?
With typhoon Yagi battering Asia, storm Boris drenching parts of Europe, extreme flooding in the Sahel and hurricane Helene racing towards Florida, September so far has been a very wet month.
But while scientists can link some extreme weather events directly to human-caused global warming, it remains too early to draw clear conclusions about this sodden month.
"You will always have some sort of extreme weather events, but their intensity has been magnified by global warming, especially in the context of rainfall," Paulo Ceppi from Imperial College London's Grantham Institute told AFP on Thursday.
"That's probably one of the common drivers of these different events in very different parts of the world."
Early indications from monthly data show some record-breaking precipitation levels in the regions affected.
In central Europe, the torrential rains accompanying storm Boris were "the heaviest ever recorded" in the region, according to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) network of scientists, inundating homes and farmland.
Global warming has doubled the likelihood of severe four-day downpours since the pre-industrial era and the costs of climate change are "accelerating", WWA said in a report published Wednesday.
Meanwhile in Japan's city of Wajima, more than 120 millimetres (4.7 inches) of rainfall per hour from typhoon Yagi was recorded on the morning of September 21 -- the heaviest rain since comparative data became available in 1929.
- Hotter, and wetter? -
"Attributing different weather patterns around the world at the same time to climate change is very challenging," said Liz Stephens, science lead at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.
"But the fundamental principle remains that for every 1 degree Celsius of warming the atmosphere can hold seven percent more moisture," she told AFP.
With global warming on track to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times "you can do the math pretty quickly and that will have a measurable impact," said Ceppi from the Grantham Institute.
The 2024 northern summer saw the highest global temperatures ever recorded, beating last year's record, according to the EU's climate monitor Copernicus.
A hotter planet, in other words, could also signal a wetter one.
The sweltering summer in the Mediterranean this year "gives a lot of extra evaporation, pumping more water vapour into Europe if the conditions are right and allowing for all that moisture to be dumped in certain places," Ceppi said.
"The global temperatures -- both over the land and the ocean -- were anomalously high during August-September despite La Nina-like conditions evolving in the Pacific," Roxy Mathew Koll at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology told AFP.
"Anomalously high temperatures assist in supplying additional heat and moisture for storms and weather systems to intensify."
La Nina refers to a naturally-occurring climate phenomenon that cools the ocean surface temperatures in large swathes of the tropical Pacific Ocean, coupled with winds, rains and changes in atmospheric pressure.
In many locations, especially in the tropics, La Nina produces the opposite climate impacts to El Nino, which heats up the surface of the oceans, leading to drought in some parts of the world and triggering heavy downpours elsewhere.
Currently, "neutral" conditions prevail, meaning neither El Nino nor La Nina are present.
Large swaths of South America and Southern Africa suffered from drought in 2024.
The global September update from Copernicus is due early next month and will provide hard data on precipitation levels.
M.Gameiro--PC