Global warming is what caused a British-flagged luxury yacht to sink off the coast of Sicily on Monday, Italian climate scientist Luca Mercali told Reuters.
One person was killed and six others, including British technology entrepreneur Mike Lynch, went missing after the 56-metre (184-foot) yacht “Bayesian” was caught in sudden bad weather.
Mercali, president of the Italian Meteorological Society, said the phenomenon could be a waterspout, meaning a tornado over water, or a downburst, a more frequent phenomenon that does not involve air rotation.
“We don’t know what incident it was because it all happened in the dark of the morning, so we don’t have any photographs,” he said.
In Italy, waterspouts can cause winds of up to 200 kilometres (124 miles) per hour, while downbursts can cause gusts of over 250 kilometres per hour.
The data show that downbursts are becoming more frequent across the country, which Merkley said could be linked to global warming.
Italy has been hit by storms and heavy rainfall in recent days after several weeks of intense heat.
“The sea surface temperature around Sicily was about 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), about 3 degrees above normal. This creates a huge source of energy that contributes to these storms,” Merkley said.
“So we can’t say that this is all due to climate change, but we can say that its impact is increasing.”
In May last year, four people died in a similar storm when their tourist boat sank in Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.
The country’s diverse geological structure leaves it vulnerable to flooding and landslides, while the fact that it is surrounded by a rapidly warming ocean means it is vulnerable to increasingly powerful storms.
“Climate-induced disasters will occur more frequently and be more intense in Italy,” Mercali said.