Drought risk increased by at least 20 times due to climate change claims new research
Human-induced climate change has increased the risk of drought in the northern hemisphere by at least 20 times, an international team of scientists said on Wednesday. The World Weather Attribution Service analyzed droughts in Europe, China and North America between June and August. This research analyzes how closely individual weather events are linked to global heating.
According to AFP, a quick analysis released on Wednesday said that such droughts will now become increasingly common with rising global temperatures. The months of June-August were the warmest in Europe since the start of research for the analysis. The exceptionally high temperatures have caused the worst drought in Europe since the Middle Ages. At the same time, the crops have dried up and the historical drought has increased the intensity of the forest fires. At the same time, it has put serious pressure on Europe’s power grid.
Britain saw temperatures of 40 °C (104 °F) for the first time during a continuous heatwave between June and July. At the same time, about 24,000 additional deaths were seen in Europe during this period. China and North America have also experienced unusually high temperatures and exceptionally low rainfall during this period.
Professor Sonia Seneviratne at the Institute of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences at ETH Zurich said the summer of 2022 has shown how human-induced climate change is increasing the risk of agricultural and ecological drought in densely populated and cultivated areas of the northern hemisphere. She is one of the scientists doing research.
Overall, droughts like this summer in the northern hemisphere are likely to occur once every 20 years in today’s climate, she said. Whereas in the middle of the eighteenth century this happened once every 400 years.
