{"id":446293,"date":"2026-02-26T08:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T08:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/446293\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T08:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T08:08:07","slug":"climate-change-supercharged-iberian-peninsulas-destructive-storms-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/446293\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate change supercharged Iberian Peninsula\u2019s destructive storms \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the southern region, \u201cthe climate models actually don&#8217;t show any increasing trend in rainfall on the wettest days.\u201d For that reason, \u201cwe can&#8217;t quantify the effect of climate change on extreme rainfall in that southern area,\u201d Barnes added, but stressed: \u201cThis does not mean that climate change didn&#8217;t contribute to the extreme rainfall in the southern region as well, just that it&#8217;s difficult to detect overall trends over time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Hotter oceans, heavier rain<\/p>\n<p>In particular, the researchers also found that the succession of storms was driven in part by a so-called atmospheric river, a long band of wind and water vapor that transports moisture across vast distances.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"681\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-2259766254-1024x681.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8007030\"  \/>Nine destructive winter storms hit the Iberian Peninsula with extensive flooding between mid-January and mid-February. | Jorge Guerrerp\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The atmospheric river was \u201cintensified by passing over a very strong marine heatwave in the Atlantic on its way up to Spain,\u201d said Barnes. This increase in sea temperatures, she added, was found to have been made 10 times more likely to happen as a result of climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe storm \u2026 is carrying moisture from the Atlantic up towards Iberia, up towards northern Morocco, and because this atmospheric river passed over this very warm patch of ocean, it was able to pick up more moisture than it would have if the ocean had been cooler, and that means that when that rain makes landfall \u2026 there is more water to fall,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A so-called blocked weather pattern \u2014\u00a0describing a high-pressure area that diverts winds around it \u2014 also influenced the extreme weather by channeling storm after storm toward Iberia for a month. Scientists are still investigating whether climate change is increasing the occurrence of blocking patterns.<\/p>\n<p>The authors noted that at an estimated 49 fatalities across the three countries, the death toll remained relatively low, thanks to concerted early-warning and evacuation efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the southern region, \u201cthe climate models actually don&#8217;t show any increasing trend in rainfall on the wettest&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[48713,556,1397,2982,464,16244,3517,90,640,56,54,55,1426],"class_list":{"0":"post-446293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-climate-adaptation","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-fossil-fuels","12":"tag-infrastructure","13":"tag-morocco","14":"tag-portugal","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-spain","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom","20":"tag-water"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}