Increased future occurrences of the exceptional 2018–2019 Central European drought under global warming

Abstract

Since the spring 2018, a large part of Europe has been in the midst of a record-setting drought. Using long-term observations, we demonstrate that the occurrence of the 2018-2019 (consecutive) summer drought is unprecedented in the last 250 years, and its combined impact on the growing season vegetation activities is stronger compared to the 2003 European drought. Using a suite of climate model simulation outputs, we underpin the role of anthropogenic warming on exacerbating the future risk of such a consecutive drought event. Under the highest Representative Concentration Pathway, (RCP 8.5), we notice a seven-fold increase in the occurrence of the consecutive droughts, with additional 40 (± 5) million ha of cultivated areas being affected by such droughts, during the second half of the twenty-first century. The occurrence is significantly reduced under low and medium scenarios (RCP 2.6 and RCP 4.5), suggesting that an effective mitigation strategy could aid in reducing the risk of future consecutive droughts. Human-induced climate change is evident and it poses a great concern to society, primarily due to its potential to intensify extreme events around the globe 1,2. In the past 2 decades, Europe experienced an increased frequency of droughts 3,4 with estimated loss of about EUR 100 billion 5. One such devastating event was the drought in summer 2003, which was an exceptionally warm and dry year across most of central and western Europe. Historical reconstructions since 1500 C.E. suggest that it was one of the hottest summers 6 , and the event was estimated to result in a 30% reduction in gross primary production compared to previous years between 1998-2002 3. Although, the 2003 drought event was rare and exceptional, even in a multi-centennial time window, its likelihood is expected to increase in the near future 7 , mainly due to the anthropogenic warming 8-11. In the summer of 2018, temperature anomaly broke the record again in several locations across Europe, but with distinct spatial patterns. While in summer 2003 the increase in temperature was more concentrated in central and southern Europe (Fig. 1a), summer 2018 was characterised by an anomalous increase in central and northeastern Europe (Fig. 1b). Unlike the 2003 event-where the temperature anomaly (Supplementary Fig. S1) and the ecosystem carbon and energy fluxes recovered early after the summer 12 , the extreme event of 2018 persisted to the subsequent year 2019 (Fig. 1c). For all these years, the impact was strongest in the Central European region, where the increase in temperature was accompanied by concurrent significant reduction of summer precipitation (Fig. 1d-f), which led to extreme drought conditions. The intensity and spatial extent of droughts significantly affects the plant and agricultural productivity 13,14 , underlying the severity of the drought impact in Central European region, where the focus on agriculture is strong 3,7,15-17. With the use of remote sensing data-sets 18 , we find that the concurrent increased temperature with de...

Severe Drought in the Spring of 2020 in Poland—More of the Same?

“…Extreme droughts from the past, e.g., those recorded in 2003, 2010, 2015 and 2018-2019, will no longer be classified as extreme in Europe. Without effective climate change mitigation, large areas of Europe may be affected by soil moisture deficits [3,20,21].…”

“…As droughts develop, their effects on agriculture, water supply, energy and the environment grow. Since the year 2000, Europe has faced multiple severe droughts, accompanied by heat waves, such as in 2003,2006,2010,2015,2018, 2019 and 2020 [2,3], as well as extensive forest fires [4].…”

“…The higher the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, the greater will the role of anthropogenic warming in exacerbating the future risk of multi-year drought events be. Climate model simulations under the highest Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP8.5) predict a seven-fold increase in the occurrence of the consecutive droughts during the second half of the 21st century [3]. If the rate of anthropogenic warming slows down, the risk of future droughts will be reduced [3].…”

“…Climate model simulations under the highest Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP8.5) predict a seven-fold increase in the occurrence of the consecutive droughts during the second half of the 21st century [3]. If the rate of anthropogenic warming slows down, the risk of future droughts will be reduced [3]. In addition, Samaniego et al [20] pointed out that a global warming of 3 K will lead to increase in droughts: an event like the 2003 drought is projected to become twice as frequent in Europe.…”

“…Due to low mean annual precipitation (a national average of 624 mm) [22] and low water resources (a mean of about 60 billion m 3 , and in dry years much less: below 40 billion m 3 ), the per capita water availability in Poland is far below the European average. It is only possible to store approximately 6.5% of annual river flow in reservoirs in Poland [23], hence there would be no water for massive agricultural irrigation in the country, which may be needed in the warming climate.…”