REC: The Bulletin 7/2: Hungary's dry opinion

A F T E R  T H E  F L O O D

H U N G A R Y

Hungary's dry opinion

by Marton Burger

July's floods didn't manage to affect Hungary nearly as much as its northern neighbors. And although heavy rains may return in the future, the tendency is that the Carpathian basin's weather is getting drier.

Hungarian experts referred to this year's flood as 'typical,' causing only minimal problems, and averaging 20-30 centimeters lower than the last flood in 1991. "Floods of this scale may happen every three to four years," said Peter Bartha, deputy director for Hungary's Hydrological Scientific Research Institute, adding that in continental climate conditions, floods can occur practically any time during the year. "In fact, the summer months are more rainy than those in spring time," he said.

Marta Bona, weather forecaster for the Hungarian Meteorology Service, agreed that heavy rains are not unusual in the summer. "The only strange thing was that the same meteorological situation happened twice in a fortnight," she said. Two temperate climate cyclones came one after the other and stopped at the same spot above Central Europe.

Janos Mika, climate researcher for the Hungarian Meteorological Service, said that "global warming could be indirectly related." Mika explained that the amount of rain depends on three major factors including the water content of the air column, the differences in temperature between layers of the atmosphere, and the frequency of cyclones, which bring rain, and anticyclones, which bring dry weather. As for the water content of the air, Mika said that global warming increases the rate of oceans evaporating, and also that warmer air can hold more water, which result in more frequent rains. Temperature differences between layers of air increase because the energy that is trapped in the atmosphere as a result of the greenhouse effect warms up the air more effectively near the surface of the earth while at the same time the stratosphere, eleven kilometers above the earth's surface, gets colder. These greater differences facilitate the formation of clouds and consequently more rain.

However, it is statistically shown that in the Carpathian basin, anticyclones are becoming more frequent in the summer, as cyclones become scarcer. And this seems to be decisive - Hungary and the region are actually getting drier. Furthermore, when cyclones do bring rain, in the long run, they will bring more because of more water in the air and greater temperature differences between the layers of the atmosphere.

In the past, Hungary's flood protection system was advanced in comparison to its neighbors. But Romania recently improved its protection system so that some water which earlier flooded Romania now crosses the border into Hungary, said Bartha. In contrast, he added that the Gabcikovo dam in Slovakia helped Hungary, given its large reservoir and because it split the river in two, thereby increasing the riverbed's flood retention capacity.

AN UNWELCOME SURPRISE, THE FLOOD ENLARGED THIS HOTEL's swimming pool free of charge, downstream from the REC's head office in Szentendre, Hungary.

As for Szentendre and the REC's head office, the dikes protecting downtown kept the waters away from the tourists, but further upstream, the river did some dirty work. Just up from where the dike ends is a hotel, huddled right next to the Danube's bank. During the flood, access was cut off to rooms while the swimming pool and tennis courts became completely submerged. Just up from that is the REC's head office, the backyard of which was flooded, as were the ground floor of the Conference Center and the bungalows of the Junior Fellows.

- Marton Burger,
freelance journalist based in Budapest.

REC * PUBLICATIONS * THE BULLETIN * SUMMER 1997