Scientists say Europe’s droughts are increasingly being driven by scorching heat rather than a lack of rain, with soil moisture disappearing “faster than it would in a world without climate change”.
France is heading for its worst maize harvest in 50 years. Romania has lost more than a million hectares of crops. Rivers across the continent are running so low that shipping lanes are disrupted and energy production is under strain.
According to a new study, the root cause isn’t simply a shortage of rain – it’s heat.
Research by World Weather Attribution (WWA), an international collaboration of climate scientists, has found that record-breaking summer heat is supercharging drought across Europe by evaporating water out of the soil faster than it can be replenished.
Scientists from 12 European countries analysed rainfall trends, agricultural drought (soil moisture) and “potential evapotranspiration” – a measure of the atmosphere’s ‘thirst’ or its ability to evaporate moisture – to work out how much of a role climate change is playing in this year’s drought.
