• Climate change increased by 20 times the likelihood of the drought that spanned three continents this summer.
• If not for human-caused climate change, this type of drought would only occur once every 400 years.
• With an extra 0.8 degrees C warming, it will occur every year in the Northern Hemisphere.

According to a recent study, climate change increased by 20 times the likelihood of the drought that spanned three continents this summer, parching significant portions of Europe, the United States, and China.

The drought dried up major rivers, ruined farms, started wildfires, and endangered aquatic species, and resulted in Europe’s water restrictions. It impacted regions of the United States already afflicted by drought, such as the West, as well as regions where dryness is uncommon, such as the Northeast. China just experienced the driest summer in sixty years, reducing the breadth of the famous Yangtze river by half.

If not for human-caused climate change, this type of drought would only occur once every 400 years in the Northern Hemisphere. Given that the temperature has warmed, they anticipate that these conditions will occur every 20 years.

According to Martin van Aalst, a climate scientist at Columbia University and co-author of the paper, ecological disasters such as the extensive drought and then severe flooding in Pakistan are “the fingerprints of climate change.”

Not just in poor countries, such as flood-ravaged Pakistan, but also in some of the world’s wealthiest regions, such as western central Europe, are people feeling the effects of climate change in a profound way.

To determine how climate change affects Northern Hemisphere drying, scientists evaluated weather data, computer simulations, and soil moisture. They discovered that climate change has significantly increased the likelihood of dry soil conditions during the past few months.

This research was conducted using the warming that the world has already undergone, 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit). However, climate experts have cautioned that the climate will continue to warm, and the authors of this study accounted for this.

With an extra 0.8 degrees C warming, this type of drought will occur every year in the Northern Hemisphere, according to ETH Zurich climate scientist Dominik Schumacher.

“We’re seeing these compounding and cascading effect across sectors and across regions,” van Aalst said. “One way to reduce those impacts (is) to reduce emissions.”

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