In which we learn that ‘recent changes in drought patterns are not unprecedented as yet’. Climate models seem to be exaggerating the drought risks, according to this research.
An international team of researchers have published a study exploring the association between summer temperature and drought across Europe placing recent drought in the context of the past 12 centuries, reports EurekAlert.
The study reveals that, throughout history, northern Europe has tended to get wetter and southern Europe to get drier during warmer periods.
They also observe that recent changes in drought patterns are not unprecedented as yet and emphasise that continuing to improve understanding of the relationship between summer heat and drought is critical to projecting flood and drought risks.
The new study, published in Environmental Research Letters, explores the relationship between summer temperature and drought using weather measurements going back to the 18th century and tree-ring reconstructions of temperature and drought going back to the 9th century.
The team then compared the picture of past temperature and drought, revealed by the tree-ring records, to simulations from the same climate models that are used to predict future climate.
This comparison revealed that the climate model simulations show a too strong relationship between warm and dry summers, and do not capture that a large part of Europe has received more precipitation, not less, when it has been warm in the past 12 centuries.
Project leader Dr. Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, Associate Professor at Stockholm University, said these new findings are important as we are able to see for the first time that the relationship between summer temperature and drought in modern weather measurements has persisted for at least 12 centuries. “We can also see that wetting trend in northern Europe, and drying trend in southern Europe, during the 20th century is not unprecedented over this time perspective,” he said.
Full article here.
via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
August 9, 2019 at 10:43AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.
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