Climate Change Exacerbates Drought Severity in Europe

An international team of scientists reported on Thursday that climate change driven by human activity has exacerbated the severe drought sweeping across Europe, noting that record-high temperatures, rather than a lack of rainfall, are the primary cause of this crisis.

The continent is grappling with intense drought conditions, with countries ranging from France to Romania facing dried-up rivers, water consumption restrictions, and devastating wildfires, following a historic heatwave that struck the region in June.

A new study revealed that the current warmer climate has accelerated moisture loss from Europe’s soils, lakes, and rivers, increasing the likelihood of severe drought conditions.

Mariam Zakaria, one of the contributors to the study conducted by the World Weather Attribution group, noted that while large parts of Europe experienced below-average rainfall during the spring, it was the heat driven by climate change that made the drought “more severe.”

The researcher at Imperial College London told journalists, “Overall, our results show that this drought is not primarily a story of rainfall shortage, but rather the result of a hotter atmosphere that increases moisture deficits in the land.”

She added, “This means that even in areas that have not seen major changes in precipitation amounts or where seasonal rainfall increases are expected, drought risks continue to rise.”

This is because a warmer atmosphere can hold approximately 7% more water vapor for every degree Celsius increase in temperature, according to scientists.

Global temperatures have risen by approximately 1.4 degrees Celsius since the period between 1850 and 1900, primarily due to the burning of coal, oil, and gas.

The European Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that last month was the hottest June on record in Western Europe, where an intense heatwave caused thousands of additional deaths.

Dominik Schumacher, who co-authored the study from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, told journalists that the heat was so intense that areas that had experienced a relatively wet winter dried out completely within a few months.

In this study, scientists from Europe, the United States, and the United Kingdom used weather data and computer models to compare the current drought in a warming world with a climate that was 1.4 degrees Celsius cooler.

They found that the probability of extremely dry soil in Western Europe is five times higher today than in a world without climate change, and 11 times higher in Eastern Europe.

The likelihood of recording very high levels of vapor pressure deficit—the atmosphere’s capacity to absorb moisture from soil and plants—experienced in Western Europe between April and June, is approximately 80 times higher due to climate change.

Zakaria said, “As the atmosphere has become thirstier for water, rainfall deficits that might not have caused drought in a pre-industrial climate can now lead to more severe disasters.”