But “under the current level of global warming, so about 1.2 degrees Celsius, it is an event that people would expect now about once every 20 years.”Ĭo-author Dominik Schumacher, a researcher at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich, said the study shows more danger is looming ahead with more warming. Without human influence on the climate system, the researchers would have expected such an event in west-central Europe only once every 60 to 80 years, she said. Other types of studies that look at different measurements like rainfall or river flows might show different results, she said.Ĭo-author Sonia Seneviratne, with the ETH Zürich, said this important definition of drought was also used in a recent climate assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that identified global warming impacts. Otto said the new study focused specifically on agricultural and ecological drought, defined by the lack of soil moisture. Instead, heavy rains fell, resulting in disastrous flooding. In 2016, water managers in France expected a hot, dry summer and kept reservoirs full. The authors noted that swings between different types of extremes pose another set of problems. “So it’s to some extent a question of whether we get the food to the right people at the right time, and, in that sense, also, whether we allocate financial resources to deal with the problem, everywhere.” “There is, at this point, not an absolute lack of food in the world,” he said. With food security at risk in many areas, it boils down to a question of how global resources are allocated, he added. It’s no longer a choice whether we try and avoid these problems in the future by reducing emissions.” “We have to deal with what’s already there,” he said. But cutting greenhouse gases will, at best, prevent the extremes from worsening more. “These are major impacts that are happening faster and at a larger scale than we had anticipated,” he said. Hemispheric megadroughts will intensify even more as long as fossil fuel pollution keeps accumulating in the atmosphere, said co-author Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and professor of climate and disaster resilience at the University of Twente. 4, 2022 near the town of Stoliv, Montenegro on a moist north-facing mountain slope with no history of wildfire. They can affect large areas for a long time, damaging infrastructure and overburdening social systems, she said.Ī wildfire burns Aug. Co-author Friederike Otto, with the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, said last summer shows how climate extremes aren’t just short, sharp spikes. Such widespread, persistent droughts are 20 times more likely in today’s climate, scientists reported today in a new World Weather Attribution study based on measurements and models of soil moisture from around the Northern Hemisphere. In Europe, the long heat wave is estimated to have killed about 24,000 people. The Stoliv fire burned only a few acres, but threatened homes, as well as a chestnut restoration project and the ruins of a centuries-old monastery, built in what was deemed to be the safest spot in the area.īut as the relentless, heat-fueled drought persisted across the Northern Hemisphere from June through August, it seemed to bake the very life out of the earth, threatening ecosystems as well as water, power and food supplies. Residents of the village said there were no memories among the living population, nor old tales, of fire on the north-facing slope just above the Bay of Kotor that is home to ancient sweet chestnut trees and olive groves. Nobody expected the wildfire that started burning in early August on the steep, forested hillside above Stoliv, Montenegro.
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