Europe experienced two sides of climate change last year, with wet weather hitting western countries while eastern countries became exceedingly dry, a study has found.
Some 30 per cent of Europe’s rivers were subject to “high” flooding last year, almost all in the west of the continent, the European State of the Climate report said. For western Europe it was one of the ten wettest years on record.
Storms were often severe and flooding was the most widespread since 2013, claiming at least 335 lives and affecting about 413,000 people, according to the paper, which was released by the UN World Meteorological Organisation and the Copernicus Climate Change Service .
This included devastating floods in Valencia in October that killed more than 200 people.
The
