The 2018–2020 Multi‐Year Drought Sets a New Benchmark in Europe

Rakovec, Oldřich; Samaniego, Luis; Hari, Vittal; Markonis, Yannis; Moravec, Vojtěch; Thober, Stephan; Hanel, Martin; Kumar, Rohini

doi:10.1029/2021ef002394

Cited by 94 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Europe experienced a series of droughts in the recent period, which were unprecedented compared to the past century (Hari et al 2020, Büntgen et al 2021, Rakovec et al 2022. Although recent efforts were invested in understanding the characteristics of conventional droughts (Ciais et al 2005, Hanel et al 2018, Moravec et al 2021, as well as their physical mechanisms (Ionita et al 2020), an assessment of changes in flash drought events-that sets-up rapidly in a short time-over Europe has been lacking.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in Europe

Shah

Hari

Rakovec

et al. 2022

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Flash droughts are caused by a rapid depletion of soil moisture, which severely affect vegetation growth and agricultural production. Notwithstanding the growing importance of flash droughts under the warming climate, drivers of flash droughts across the Europe are not well understood. Here we estimate the changes in flash droughts characteristics across Europe using the latest release of ERA5 reanalysis for 1950--2019 period. We find a substantial increase in the frequency and spatial extent of flash droughts across Europe (with 79\% of the total area) during the growing season with at-least one fourth of domain showing two-fold increase in the recent decades. Increased occurrence of flash drought is largely attributed to frequent occurrence of warmer and drier co-occurring events, with a sharp gradient of changes being noticed in Mediterranean and Central European regions. Compound meteorological extremes causing the flash drought events across Europe are pre-dominantly driven by the recent climate warming. With unabated greenhouse gas emissions and current pace of climate warming, Europe is likely to face an increased occurrence of flash droughts, requiring prompt response for effective drought adaptation and management strategies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in Europe

Shah

Hari

Rakovec

et al. 2022

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…The 2018-2019 multi-year drought was an unprecedented event, but with accelerating climate change, such multi-year droughts are likely to become more frequent (Hari et al, 2020;IPCC, 2018;Rakovec et al, 2022;Samaniego et al, 2018). In this context, this study is one step towards a better understanding of the impacts of such droughts on nitrate export dynamics and the underlying mechanisms within a catchment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…In 2018-2019, large parts of Europe experienced a severe multi-year drought that was unprecedented in the last 250 years (Hari et al, 2020;Rakovec et al, 2022). This drought, caused by exceptionally low precipitation concurring with high temperatures, had detrimental impacts on vegetation during the growing season and caused massive forest diebacks (Hari et al, 2020;Schuldt et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Droughts can reduce the nitrogen retention capacity of catchments

Winter

Nguyên

Мусолфф

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Abstract. In 2018–2019, Central Europe experienced an unprecedented multi-year drought with severe impacts on society and ecosystems. In this study, we analyzed the impact of this drought on water quality by comparing long-term (1997–2017) nitrate export with 2018–2019 export in a heterogeneous mesoscale catchment. We combined data-driven analysis with process-based modelling to analyze nitrogen retention and the underlying mechanisms in the soils and during subsurface transport. We found a drought-induced shift in concentration-discharge relationships, reflecting exceptionally low riverine nitrate concentrations during dry periods and exceptionally high concentrations during subsequent wet periods. Nitrate loads were up to 70 % higher, compared to the long-term load-discharge relationship. Model simulations confirmed that this increase was driven by decreased denitrification and plant uptake and subsequent flushing of accumulated nitrogen during rewetting. Fast transit times (<2 months) during wet periods in the upstream sub-catchments enabled a fast water quality response to drought. In contrast, longer transit times downstream (>20 years) inhibited a fast response but potentially contribute to a long-term drought legacy. Overall, our study reveals that severe multi-year droughts, which are predicted to become more frequent across Europe, can reduce the nitrogen retention capacity of catchments, thereby intensifying nitrate pollution and threatening water quality.

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“…Rackovec et al . [23] found that the 2018–2020 drought created a new benchmark in Europe during the period of 1766–2020. Similarly, Aadhar & Mishra [24] examined the worst soil moisture drought in the observed and projected future climate in South Asia.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Benchmark worst droughts during the summer monsoon in India

Mishra

Mujumdar

Mahto

2022

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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During the summer monsoon (June–September) season, drought poses challenges for agricultural activities and water availability in India. We develop a framework considering the timing, areal coverage and severity that can be used for the assessment of meteorological droughts as the monsoon season progresses. We estimate the benchmark worst droughts within the monsoon season (June, July, August and September) using the long-term (1901–2020) gridded rainfall. The benchmark worst droughts were identified considering the extent and severity of drought using the Drought Severity Coverage Index (DSCI). The worst meteorological drought in June, July, August and September occurred in 1923, 2002, 1937 and 1907 with a return period of 68, 200, 147, 188 years, respectively. The worst drought in the entire summer monsoon season occurred in 1918, which had a return period of 238 years. The benchmark droughts during June 1923, July 2002 and monsoon 1918 were associated with the warm sea surface temperature over the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The other two droughts (1937 and 1907) were linked with the off-equatorial warming over the Indo-Pacific region. The leading mode of variability in the Standardized Precipitation Index obtained from empirical orthogonal function analysis showed that the western and central parts of the country are most affected by droughts during the summer monsoon season. The second leading mode exhibited declining trends in rainfall with a bipolar spatial variability centred over the Gangetic Plain and southern India. The estimated DSCI for a 2–500 return period can be used for the drought assessment during the monsoon season in India. This article is part of the Royal Society Science+ meeting issue ‘Drought risk in the Anthropocene’.

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The 2018–2020 Multi‐Year Drought Sets a New Benchmark in Europe

Cited by 94 publications

References 48 publications

Increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in Europe

Increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in Europe

Droughts can reduce the nitrogen retention capacity of catchments

Benchmark worst droughts during the summer monsoon in India

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