Climate: extreme weather events up five-fold in 10 yrs

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 15 - The wave of storms that is currently hitting Italy, the latest in a long series, has taken the number of extreme-weather events the country has endured this summer up to 1,642, five times the number of a decade ago, farmers association Coldiretti said on Thursday.
    The association released the figures on the basis of data from the European Severe Weather Database (ESWD) regarding events such as tornadoes, extremely heavy rain, large hail and damaging lightning strikes.
    "The long hot summer, characterized by drought, was interrupted several times by violent rainfall," Coldiretti said.
    "The multiplication of extreme events has caused over six billion euros of damage to agriculture in 2022, 10% of the (value of) national production...
    "We are before the clear consequences of climate change, where exceptional atmospheric events are now the norm in Italy too, with a tendency towards tropicalization manifest in more frequent violent events, seasonal shifts, short, intense precipitations, the fast passage from sunshine to bad weather, with significant changes in temperature that compromises crops, with the loss of production and damage to structure and infrastructure in the countryside".
    The current wave of storms is primarily hitting the regions in central and northern Italy - Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Lazio, Liguria, Lombardy, Marche and Molise.
    As a result parks and public gardens were closed on Florence and schools were shut in some parts of the country on Thursday.
    (ANSA).