Climate change made the severe storms which flooded the Somerset Levels in 2014 much more likely, according to new research that suggests global warming will unleash increasingly devastating floods in coming years.

The report finds that man-made greenhouse gas emissions have increased the chance of extreme flooding by 43 per cent, as the warming climate holds larger quantities of moisture, which leads to heavier rainfall.

“What was once a 1 in 100-year event in a world without climate change is now a 1 in 70-year event,” said Dr Friederike Otto, of Oxford University, who co-wrote the report – the first research paper into the likely role of climate change in the Somerset floods.

During the winter of late 2013 and early 2014 the incessant rain led to significant flooding in Somerset, Devon, Dorset, Cornwall and the Thames Valley. About 5,000 homes and businesses were submerged and losses ran to more than £450m.

It is not possible to link any individual extreme weather event to climate change. However, scientists can estimate how much more likely any given event has been made by global warming.

Dr Otto has also calculated that the flooding unleashed in Cumbria by Storm Desmond in December was made 40 per cent more likely by climate change and that the record rainfall in the UK over the whole of that month was 50 to 75 per cent more likely because of global warming.

In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Show all 17 1 /17 In Pictures: Floods hit the UK In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK Members of Cleveland Mountain Rescue and soldiers from 2 Battalion The Duke of Lancasters Regiment evacuating people from the Queens Hotel in York city centre as the River Ouse floods on December 27, 2015 In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK Teams in Whalley evacuate villagers from their homes In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK A resident of Glenridding, which flooded for the third time this month, surveys the damage In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK The River Ouse, York, has burst its banks In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK A soldier from the 2nd Battalion, Duke of Lancaster’s regiment helps to sure up flood defences in Appleby, Cumbria, one of the areas worst affected by the floods In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK Experts believe the cost of clearing up the most recent flooding could exceed £50m (PA) In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK Hundreds of people have been evacuated from their homes in York In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK A police helicopter photographed the extent of the flooding in York on 27 December. In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK Flooding at Clifford's Tower in York on 27 December In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK Flooding along York's Inner Ring Road on 27 December In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK Water runs out of the Lowther pub in York on 27 December after the River Ouse bursts its banks in York city centre. In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK Flooded streets in Dumfries, Scotland on 30 December Getty In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK A car left submerged in floodwater in Newton Stewart, Scotland PA In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK Staff at the Worlds End bar in Dumfries Scotland desperately try to pump floodwater out of the building PA In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK A man stands in the doorway of his cottage in the flooded town of Straiton in Scotland PA In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK Flooding in the village of Aberfeldy, Perthshire, Scotland In Pictures: Floods hit the UK Floods hit the UK Man wades through floodwater outside a fish and chip shop in Dumfries, Scotland PA

“We can definitely say with climate change that the issue of flooding isn’t going to go away. As a society we need to think hard about the question of our vulnerability and exposure to flooding,” Dr Otto said.

She worked on the Somerset Levels study, published in Nature Climate Change, with scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat e l’Environnement (LSCE) in Paris.

The research also uses contributions from citizen scientists all over the world who used spare processing time on their computers to run more than 130,000 simulations of what the weather would have been like with and without human interference in the climate.

“The increase in extreme rainfall was due to a rise in moisture…. The more extreme the weather, the stronger the effect of climate change over the UK,” said Dr Pascal Yiou, of LSCE.

The research into flooding in the UK came as a new report from the European Environment Agency found the number of floods has been steadily rising over the years.

There have been 3,500 floods since 1980 – 321 of them in 2010, the report found.

“The recent flood problems in the UK are adding to evidence of worsening flood problems in Europe,” said Beate Werner, one of the report’s authors.