Spain: Satellite images captured deadly flooding caused by torrential rains in eastern Spain on Tuesday (Oct. 29). LandSat and Maxar satellites took pictures of the damage, which came after more than a foot (30 centimeters) of rain fell on the region, according to Spain’s meteorological agency, AEMET.
LandSat 8’s Operational Land Imager scanned the area on Wednesday (Oct. 30) and tracked “sediment-laden waters” in the coastal city of Valencia, NASA officials reported. (LandSat is managed jointly by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.) “Sediment-laden floodwaters also filled the channel of the Turia River, which empties into the Balearic Sea, part of the Mediterranean Sea, and the L’Albufera coastal wetlands south of the city,” the NASA statement said.
Anthropogenic climate change may be partly responsible for the severity of the flooding. According to the Global Climate Change Report conducted by the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, human activities were responsible for a whopping 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) increase by 2023. Activities such as the burning of fossil fuels create greenhouse gases such as methane or carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere.
