New publication on compound hot and dry summers over Europe
25 September 2024
Photo: adapted from Felsche et al. (2024) under CC BY 4.0
Cooperating with his former group at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Dr. Benjamin Poschlod has investigated compound hot and dry summers over Europe.
The hot and dry summers of 2003, 2015, and 2018 have shown devastating economic, societal, and ecological impacts. The joint occurrence of heat (high temperatures) and drought (low precipitation) aggravates the water availability affecting the agricultural sector, forestry, and hydrosphere (rivers, lakes, groundwater).
For nine European sub-regions, the most extreme hot-dry summers of the current climate (2001 - 2022; +1.2°C compared to pre-industrial time) are selected and their occurrence probability in a +2°C and +3°C warmer climate is analysed. For specific hot and dry summer events, the probability rises by up to 6 times when comparing a +2°C and +3°C warmer world, underpinning the importance of the two-degree target of the Paris climate agreement.
The changes induced by climate change manifest in a north-westward shift of the hot-dry summer climate in a +3°C warmer world (see Figure). The hot and dry climate that can now be observed in Eastern Europe under current climate conditions is projected to spread to large parts of Germany, the Baltic coast, Finland and Scandinavia.
The study led by Elizaveta Felsche is published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment: European hot and dry summers are projected to become more frequent and expand northwards