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Abstract In 2022, Europe faced an extensive summer drought with severe socio-economic consequences. By combining observations and climate model outputs with hydrological and land-surface simulations, we show that central and southern Europe experienced the highest observed total water storage deficit since satellite observations began in 2002, likely representing the highest and most widespread soil moisture deficit in the last six decades. While precipitation deficits primarily drove the soil moisture drought, human-induced global warming contributed to over 30% of the drought intensity and its spatial extent via enhancing evaporation. We identify that 14-41% of the climate change contribution was mediated by the warming that started to dry out the soil before the hydrological year 2022, indicating the importance of considering lagged effects of climate change to avoid underestimating associated risks. Qualitatively similar effects were observed in river discharges. These results highlight that global warming effects on droughts are already underway, widespread and long-lasting, and that drought risk may escalate with further human-induced warming in the future.
Bevacqua et al. (Fri,) studied this question.