Increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in Europe
Flash droughts are caused by a rapid depletion of soil moisture, and they 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 es...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IOP Publishing
2022-01-01
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| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6888 |
| _version_ | 1797747035329265664 |
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| author | Jignesh Shah Vittal Hari Oldrich Rakovec Yannis Markonis Luis Samaniego Vimal Mishra Martin Hanel Christoph Hinz Rohini Kumar |
| author_facet | Jignesh Shah Vittal Hari Oldrich Rakovec Yannis Markonis Luis Samaniego Vimal Mishra Martin Hanel Christoph Hinz Rohini Kumar |
| author_sort | Jignesh Shah |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Flash droughts are caused by a rapid depletion of soil moisture, and they 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 ERA5 reanalysis dataset 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 compound extremes, 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. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:45:22Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b5130f51fc504f4d90b438f195b704d8 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T15:45:22Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-b5130f51fc504f4d90b438f195b704d82023-08-09T15:29:40ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262022-01-0117606401710.1088/1748-9326/ac6888Increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in EuropeJignesh Shah0https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0888-2960Vittal Hari1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8754-0488Oldrich Rakovec2https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2451-3305Yannis Markonis3Luis Samaniego4https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8449-4428Vimal Mishra5https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3046-6296Martin Hanel6https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8317-6711Christoph Hinz7Rohini Kumar8https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4396-2037Department Computational Hydrosystems, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research , Leipzig, GermanyDepartment Computational Hydrosystems, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research , Leipzig, Germany; Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad , Dhanbad 826004, IndiaDepartment Computational Hydrosystems, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research , Leipzig, Germany; Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague , Praha-Suchdol 16500, Czech RepublicFaculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague , Praha-Suchdol 16500, Czech RepublicDepartment Computational Hydrosystems, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research , Leipzig, GermanyIndian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar , Palaj, Gandhinagar 382355, IndiaFaculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague , Praha-Suchdol 16500, Czech RepublicChair for Hydrology—Brandenburg University of Technology , Cottbus, GermanyDepartment Computational Hydrosystems, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research , Leipzig, GermanyFlash droughts are caused by a rapid depletion of soil moisture, and they 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 ERA5 reanalysis dataset 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 compound extremes, 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.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6888Europeflash droughtsclimate warmingERA5soil moisture |
| spellingShingle | Jignesh Shah Vittal Hari Oldrich Rakovec Yannis Markonis Luis Samaniego Vimal Mishra Martin Hanel Christoph Hinz Rohini Kumar Increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in Europe Environmental Research Letters Europe flash droughts climate warming ERA5 soil moisture |
| title | Increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in Europe |
| title_full | Increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in Europe |
| title_fullStr | Increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in Europe |
| title_full_unstemmed | Increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in Europe |
| title_short | Increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in Europe |
| title_sort | increasing footprint of climate warming on flash droughts occurrence in europe |
| topic | Europe flash droughts climate warming ERA5 soil moisture |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac6888 |
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