European Summer Droughts Since 2015 Unprecedented in Past Two Millennia
Published:06 Apr.2021 Source:University of Cambridge
Recent summer droughts in Europe are far more severe than anything in the past 2,100 years, according to a new study.
An international team, led by the University of Cambridge, studied the chemical fingerprints in European oak trees to reconstruct summer climate over 2,110 years. They found that after a long-term drying trend, drought conditions since 2015 suddenly intensified, beyond anything in the past two thousand years. This anomaly is likely the result of human-caused climate change and associated shifts in the jet stream. The results are reported in the journal Nature Geoscience.