Deadly floods linked to climate crisis - Greenpeace/CNR-IRPI

(see related) (ANSA) - ROME, MAY 17 - The Italian section of Greenpeace and the National Research Council's Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection (CNR-IRPI) said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the deadly floods that have hit Emilia-Romagna and Marche are linked to the global warming caused by human greenhouse-gas emissions.
    "Extreme events like those currently taking place risk becoming normality if we do not urgently address the causes of the climate crisis," said Greenpeace Italia's Federico Spadini.
    "We are not faced with simple episodes of bad weather, but full-blown tragedies fed by the heating of the planet.
    "Continuing to extract and burn gas and oil is a crime that will increasingly make the climate crisis worse, with the loss of human lives, environmental destruction and serious social and economic impacts.
    "That is why we must immediately end the fossil-fuel era".
    CNR-IRPI Researcher Mauro Rossi said that "a connection between what is happening at the moment in Emilia-Romagna and the consequences of climate change exists.
    Rossi said that the drought northern Italy has endured over the last year made the ground less able to absorb this intense rainfall.
    "The increase in temperatures intensifies episodes of drought, dries the soil and modifies its permeability in various ways," Rossi continued.
    "At the same time, the same quantity of water falls in a shorter time span, increasing the intensity of precipitation...
    "Unfortunately today we can see how the alternation of dry periods and extreme-rain events makes geo-hydrological events more likely in our territory". (ANSA).