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Climate Detectives Projects 2023-2024

Project title: Impact of Climate Change on Precipitation Patterns in Belgium

College Hagelstein   Sint-Katelijne-Waver   Belgium

Research question

What is the impact of climate change on rainfall patterns in Sint-Katelijne-Waver, Belgium?

Summary of the project

Climate change changes the weather patterns in Belgium. Winters are getting wetter and milder, while summers are becoming warmer and drier. These changes have important consequences, like more extreme precipitation events causing floods and periods of drought that make it difficult for farming, water supply, and ecosystems to thrive. Human activities, like releasing greenhouse gases and land use, are the main reasons for climate change. This affects precipitation patterns.

This project aims to investigate the impact of climate change on precipitation patterns in Belgium and to be precise in Sint-Katelijne-Waver. Utilising reputable sources such as the KMI Open Data. We put the data into a database and took out all the days where there was no rain, so we could work with less data. Then we made a graph of each year with the rainfall in mm on the y-axis and the rain month by month on the x-axis and looked for patterns in the graphs.

Main results and Conclusions

What is the impact of climate change on rainfall patterns in Sint-Katelijne-Waver, Belgium?

The average amount of rainfall each year is 764 mm over the last 16 years, from year 2008 to 2023. For each year, we then calculated the deviation from the average (see graph in uploaded image). This graph shows that over the years rainfall deviates more from the average each year. The increasing deviations in rainfall from the average over the years can be explained by changes in climatic patterns, such as climate change. These changes can lead to more extreme weather conditions, including both heavy rainfall and drought, resulting in greater variability in annual rainfall levels. Since air can hold 7% more moisture per degree of warming, climate change is expected to result heavier rainfalls. Our analysis of local weather data over a period of 16 years are in line with this prediction.

What’s Next? Actions to make a difference and help lessen the problem

Educating the public about the causes and consequences of extreme weather events is important. By giving climate education, we can motivate children and parents to start taking action against climate change. Raising awareness about the causes and impacts of extreme weather events is essential in promoting climate action. By educating the public, we can empower people to make ecofriendly choices and contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Whenever feasible, choose to walk, bike, carpool, or use public transportation. Consider eco-friendly options like hybrid or electric vehicles. Start going too school with your bike. Locally it can help to start creating a more bike accessible city by building more bike lanes and creating more car free zones. Reduce your meat consumption, particularly red meat and dairy, as they have a significant carbon footprint. Eating more local bought food and keeping in mind what season food there is can also help. So don’t be afraid to buy from your local farmer. By supporting companies and big businesses that focus on being durable can help since companies are one of the biggest polluters. And maybe don’t buy goods from these companies and focus on buying it hand made since there is way less carbon emission in this way of creating goods. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and aid in mitigating climate change. Consider planting trees in your own yard or participating in tree-planting initiatives within your community. It is way easier done then some people think. Minimize travelling with big polluters like planes or cars. Try to travel more with sustainable ways of transport like the train of maybe even bike. It can be even more fun then you think.

Projects are created by the teams and they take the full responsibility of the shared data.
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