# The catastrophic floods of April 2022 in Durban, which claimed 544 lives, were made significantly worse by climate change, according to a study led by the University of Witwatersrand. A kilometre-scale climate attribution model was used, which simulated the storm in both today’s warmed climate and a counterfactual world without human-induced global warming. Three key drivers behind the intensified rainfall have been identified. These are a warmer atmosphere, fuelled by greenhouse gases, the Agulhas Current has warmed in recent decades, and changes in wind patterns are funnelling more moist air into KwaZulu-Natal.
Wits says climate change significantly worsened the deadly 2022 Durban floods