{"id":21705,"date":"2016-09-17T13:10:29","date_gmt":"2016-09-17T18:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21705"},"modified":"2016-09-17T13:10:29","modified_gmt":"2016-09-17T18:10:29","slug":"climate-change-doubled-the-chances-of-louisiana-heavy-rains-scientists-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21705","title":{"rendered":"Climate change doubled the chances of Louisiana heavy rains, scientists warn"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Climate change doubled the chances of Louisiana heavy rains, scientists warn<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A Coast Guardsman looks out from an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter searching for stranded residents in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on 15 August, 2016.<\/span>\u00a0Credit: Melissa Leake\/US Dept. of Agriculture.<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Climate change doubled the chances of Louisiana heavy rains, scientists warn<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Torrential rains unleashed on south Louisiana in August were made almost twice as likely by human-caused climate change, according to a quick-fire analysis released just weeks after the flood waters subsided.<\/p>\n

The team of scientists concluded that such an event is expected to occur a minimum of 40% more often now than in 1900, but their best estimate is that the odds\u00a0have now halved.<\/p>\n

Dr Friederike Otto<\/a>, a senior researcher in extreme weather and attribution in the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University, who wasn\u2019t involved in the research, tells Carbon Brief:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a very striking example of the impact that climate change already has on us today\u2026it is the rainfall event with the highest increase in risk that has been analysed, that I\u2019m aware of.\u201d<\/div>\n

The new research is the latest in what are known as \u201csingle event attribution\u201d studies. This one is notable for being the first collaboration between scientists at the\u00a0World Weather Attribution<\/a>\u00a0(WWA) project and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

A view from an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter shows flooding and devastation in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 15 August 2016. Credit: Melissa Leake\/US Department of Agriculture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Historic rains<\/h4>\n

On 10 Aug 2016, a low pressure system swept into south Louisiana from the Gulf of Mexico. A combination of unusually warm water providing extra \u201cfuel\u201d for the storm and its sluggish movement meant it dumped a huge amount of rain in one area for several days in a row.<\/p>\n

The WWA team said in a\u00a0summary<\/a>\u00a0accompanying their findings:<\/p>\n

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…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Climate change doubled the chances of Louisiana heavy rains, scientists warn A Coast Guardsman looks out from an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter searching for stranded residents in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on 15 August, 2016.\u00a0Credit: Melissa Leake\/US Dept. of Agriculture. Climate change doubled the chances of Louisiana heavy rains, scientists warn Torrential rains unleashed on south Louisiana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10797,141,1001,14294,14258,12977],"class_list":["post-21705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-carbon-brief","tag-climate-change","tag-flooding","tag-heavy-rains","tag-louisianna","tag-roz-pidcock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21706,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21705\/revisions\/21706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}