- Fiery Harris vows break from Biden in testy Fox interview
- Fiery Harris claims break from Biden in testy Fox interview
- Raytheon to pay $950 mn over fraud, bribery schemes: US
- Fiery Harris uses testy Fox interview to claim break from Biden
- Water crisis threatening world food production: report
- Mexico's ex-security chief sentenced to over 38 years in US prison
- One Direction's Liam Payne falls to death at Argentina hotel
- Climate change worsened deadly Nepal floods, scientists say
- Alcaraz will face 'difficult' clash with 'idol' Nadal
- US says India has removed alleged agent in assassination plot
- Barca hit nine in Women's Champions League, Bayern overcome Juve
- Harris courts Trump-skeptic Republicans with Fox interview
- Global stock markets diverge as investors focus on earnings
- Worms and snails handle the pressure 2,500m below the Pacific surface
- Serena Williams has grapefruit-sized cyst removed from neck
- Lavreysen wins record-equalling 14th world cycling track title
- School's out! Argentina students study in the street to protest budget cuts
- Lower rates, surging stock market fail to ignite US IPO market
- Pogba 'willing to give up money' to stay at Juve
- Few countries have drawn up nature protection plans: UN
- Biden to make farewell trip to Germany as Ukraine war rages
- EU announces 30 mn euros to stem Senegal irregular migration
- Italy extends surrogacy ban to couples seeking it abroad
- Panama Canal crossings down 29 percent due to drought
- 'Clear indications' India violated Canada's sovereignty: Trudeau
- World champion Springboks to host Italy in 2025, Moerat to miss November tour
- Trump claims to be 'father of IVF' at all-female campaign stop
- WHO demands space to finish Gaza polio vaccination
- Mitchell left out of England squad for Autumn internationals
- Real Madrid back Mbappe amid Swedish rape investigation reports
- Middle East crisis top-of-mind at first EU-Gulf summit
- Israeli minister criticises Macron over France defence show ban
- Global stock markets diverge as markets focus on earmings
- Who said what on Tuchel's appointment as England manager
- Amazon bets on nuclear power to fuel AI ambitions
- Zelensky plan will be 'on table' at NATO talks this week: Rutte
- Harris steps into lion's den with Fox interview
- Macron riles Netanyahu with jab on Israel's creation
- Britain bounce back in America's Cup as New Zealand suffer
- Turkey shuts down radio station in Armenia genocide row
- Global stock markets diverge as tech fears linger
- Tuchel targets trophies as England manager
- War piles pressure on roads, services in crisis-hit Beirut
- Israeli booths, equipment barred from defence show in France
- Tuchel hopes to deliver 'missing trophies' to England
- England 239-6 in second Test after Sajid strikes for Pakistan
- Britain off the mark in America's Cup as New Zealand suffer
- Lufthansa fined 'record' $4 mn for barring Jewish passengers
- First migrants arrive in Albania under contested Italy deal
- Zelensky rules out ceding Ukrainian land in Victory Plan, urges NATO invite
Climate change worsened deadly Nepal floods, scientists say
Climate change, along with rapid urbanisation and deforestation, turbocharged floods in Nepal that killed more than 240 people last month, scientists said on Thursday.
Nepal suffered its worst flooding in decades in late September after ferocious monsoon rains swelled rivers, swamping entire neighbourhoods in the capital Kathmandu and other districts.
World Weather Attribution (WWA), a network of scientists who assess the role of human-induced climate change on extreme weather events, said the link between the intense rainfall and a warming planet was clear.
"If the atmosphere wasn't overloaded with fossil fuel emissions, these floods would have been less intense, less destructive and less deadly," said researcher Mariam Zachariah, from Imperial College London.
Their analysis found the relentless rain, which fell on saturated ground in the late monsoon, was made at least 10 percent heavier and 70 percent more likely by climate change.
They warned that such "explosive" rain bursts will "become even heavier, risking more destructive floods" if the world does not stop burning fossil fuels.
Lashing rain from September 26 sparked floods and landslides that killed 246 people and left 18 missing, according to Nepal's government.
WWA, which uses modelling to compare weather patterns in our world and one without human-induced climate change, said there was a high level of uncertainty in the results because of the complex rain dynamics in the small, mountainous region affected.
However, the results were in line with growing scientific evidence on large-scale extreme rain in a warming climate, in which the atmosphere holds more water.
The role of climate change was also compounded by other man-made problems, they said, including rapid urbanisation, with a nearly four-fold increase in built-up areas in Kathmandu since 1990.
That was coupled with major deforestation that disrupted the natural flow of water, with tree cover slashed by more than a quarter since 1989.
The floods smashed hydropower plants, washed away homes and ripped away bridges. It was the latest disastrous flood to hit the Himalayan nation this year.
"Climate change is no longer a distant threat," said Roshan Jha, Researcher at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai.
"With every fraction of a degree of warming, the atmosphere can potentially hold more moisture, leading to much heavier downpours, and catastrophic floods like these."
Nepal has embarked on a giant hydropower dam building spree, generating 99 percent of its power, with output increasing fourfold in the past eight years.
It has signed deals to export surplus power to neighbouring coal-dependent India.
Earlier this month, the UN's World Meteorological Organization said that increasingly intense floods and droughts are a "distress signal" of what is to come as climate change makes the planet's water cycle ever more unpredictable.
WMO chief Celeste Saulo called water the "canary in the coal mine of climate change".
M.A.Colin--AMWN