After extreme summer drought: climate change study reveals a worrying look into the future

Created: 07/10/2022, 23:20

Parts of Europe experienced an unprecedented drought summer in 2022.

A new study shows the long-term consequences of climate change.

London/Munich - 30 degrees and more, dry soil, water shortage: climate change is extremely noticeable in this country and in large parts of Europe.

Western and Central Europe now have to reckon with droughts like the one people experienced in the summer of 2022 every 20 years as a result of climate change - even if the earth did not warm up any further.

This is the conclusion reached by a group of around 20 international researchers.

Among other things, they compared weather data from the pre-industrial era with those of today.

Europe: Drought without man-made climate change only every 60 to 80 years

In western and central Europe, droughts have become at least three to four times more likely after around 1.2 degrees of man-made global warming, the study shows.

This was published by the World Weather Attribution initiative.

Without global warming, a drought like this year in Europe would only have been expected every 60 to 80 years.

The researchers paid particular attention to the dryness of the soil in June, July and August of this year.

They looked at the first meter below the surface of the earth, which is particularly important for the water supply of plants.

If this has dried up, experts speak of an agricultural and ecological drought.

Study: Climate change as a cause of summer droughts

The researchers are able to show that higher temperatures caused by climate change led to the widespread droughts this summer.

"In Europe, droughts have led to lower harvests," said German climate researcher Friederike Otto of Imperial College London, according to a statement.

"This was of particular concern as the droughts followed climate change-related heatwaves in southern Asia, which also destroyed grain crops - all at a time when food prices were already extremely high due to the war in Ukraine."

According to the researchers, this year's summer was one of the hottest ever measured in Europe with a total of more than 24,000 heat deaths recorded.

In France, too, an enormous heat wave claimed human lives.

“Must stop burning fossil fuels”: climate researchers warn

The scientists point out that despite the enormous advances in research, it is difficult to measure exactly what contribution global warming has to a single drought event.

This is also due to the fact that soil dryness is more difficult to measure and calculate than temperatures and precipitation, for example.

Therefore, the results of the study are extra conservative.

This means: According to the researchers, the actual influence of man-made climate change is probably even higher.

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"We have to stop burning fossil fuels if we want to stabilize the climate and avoid further worsening of these drought events," said Sonia Seneviratne, a participating researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, according to the release.

With each further increase in global warming, droughts would become more frequent and more intense.