A recent study reveals that climate change amplified an extreme weather event that affected Europe in late March 2024.
Meteosat-8 HRV, 28 July 2005, 07:00 UTC
A study recently published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres by an international team involving the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE), the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome, and Uppsala University (Sweden), reveals how climate change amplified a complex extreme weather event that affected Europe in late March 2024.
This event combined severe flooding in Portugal with intense Saharan dust transport to the central and eastern Mediterranean. Between March 27 and April 1, 2024, a deep Atlantic low-pressure system generated moist airflows that led to exceptional rainfall over Portugal, while Scirocco winds carried large amounts of dust from North Africa to Italy, Greece, and Central Europe, degrading air quality with particle concentrations exceeding health thresholds.
Weather analog analysis shows that similar low-pressure systems have become more intense since 1980, with pressure drops reaching an additional 10 hPa compared to the 1980–2001 period. This intensification is accompanied by a 20–30% increase in rainfall over western Portugal and enhanced dust transport toward the eastern Mediterranean. NASA’s MERRA-2 data confirm an increase in aerosol loading.
The study also highlights a shift in the vertical distribution of dust: transport now occurs mainly in the lower layers of the atmosphere. In Palermo, for example, near-surface dust concentrations increased by over 400%.
These findings underscore the urgent need to better understand such compound events, whose frequency and intensity may rise with global warming, with growing impacts on infrastructure, agriculture, and public health.
Reference
Pons, F., Alberti, T., Messori, G., Dulac, F., & Faranda, D. (2025). Assessing climate change impacts on the March 2024 compound floods and Saharan dust outbreak in Europe. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 130, e2024JD042218. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JD042218