Europe to become a hotspot for flash droughts caused by climate change

Climate change is causing more frequent ‘flash droughts’. This could come in just a few weeks and send shockwaves through affected ecosystems.

Nearly three-quarters of the world has seen an increase in these sudden droughts over the past 64 years, according to modeling by Xing Yuan and his colleagues at Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, China.

As climate change progresses, almost all the world’s land masses will be affected by more frequent episodic droughts that will take hold more quickly, making Europe a particularly hot spot, Yuan said.

These events typically last 30 to 45 days, whereas slow-onset droughts tend to take weeks or months to manifest and last 40 to 60 days. The increase in his version of The Flash, he says, is due to a warming climate.

“Global warming is making the climate more volatile. That creates more extreme conditions, sometimes very heavy rainfall, but also very dry conditions,” he said. Yuan says.

Hotter temperatures also mean that water evaporates faster from the soil, leading to faster drought conditions, he added.

“These two factors will drive the speed of drought onset,” says Yuan.

The study suggests that the incidence of flash droughts is increasing significantly worldwide, but provides no data indicating the pace of change. But Yuan said that the percentage of dry seasons, which are episodic droughts, between 1950 and 2000, he said, would be more pronounced between 2050 and 2100, depending on how quickly the climate warms. It said it could increase by 15 to 20%.

On a global scale, this would have alarming consequences. As Yuan points out, existing drought monitoring systems were not designed to detect sudden droughts and are often unable to alert communities before droughts occur.

A more accurate forecast would help water companies and farmers proactively conserve water and protect public supplies and food production, he says.

Wildlife and plants may also struggle to adapt to the fast-onset drought, warns Yuan. “For traditional drought, the vegetation is drought-adapted,” he says. But he says he’s not sure if the ecosystem will have enough time to adapt if the drought hits faster.