Red Alarm:
Europe’s Next Drought is Already Upon Us
by Paul
Hockenos
29 Apr 2020
In much of
Europe, this April is proving one of the driest in history. In Germany,
wildfires are blazing, forests and farmlands are bone dry, and river depth in
some areas is a half of what it should be. According to climate scientists,
this could be the new normal as global warming enhances the frequency of severe
droughts. Farmers though could do more to secure stable harvests: by growing
more diverse crops. Paul Hockenos takes a closer look.
This April
has been one of the driest in History so far. (Public Domain)
Germany’s
Forest Fire Index, a map issued by the national weather service, is a dappled
collage of reds, oranges and purples: the colors for high levels of fire
warning, the kind one might usually see in a particularly hot year in the
middle of summer. But this year Germany is already experiencing extremely dry
weather – and in North Rhine Westphalia scattered forest fires – in April. The
weather service says that the month has thus far experienced just 5% of its
usual rainfall and that 2020 could well be another year of severe drought in
Germany, perhaps on a par with than those in 2018 and 2019.
The images
of the gigantic blazes that swept across southeastern Australia just months ago
may have faded in the memories of many with the coronavirus crisis now so
forefront in our minds. But the crises of global warming are present and ever
more destructive – in Germany and across Europe. Thus far, 2020 is the warmest
in Europe in a century: half a degree higher than in 1990, which had held the
record until now. Several EU studies indicate that climate change is reducing
soil moisture in important grain-growing regions in Europe, and that droughts
are likely to become more frequent in the foreseeable future.
“In the
Sahara [desert], it is really wet compared to Berlin,” meteorologist Jan Schenk
told the weekly Focus. There, April will probably see about 20 liters of rain
per square meter, says Schenk, compared to zero liters in Berlin. Particularly
in eastern and southern Germany, the drought conditions are already
exceptional, he says. “There will hardly be any precipitation until the end of
May,” says Schenk. This, he says, will not be enough to head off the worst. If
this weather persists through the summer, 2020 could prove drier, hotter, and
more damaging than that of 2018.
Signs of
another drought year are just about everywhere to see. In the eastern city of
Dresden, the water level of the Elbe River is at just 95 cm, less than half of
its average. The Elbe was just one of many rivers in Germany in 2018 and 2019
that had to suspend shipping on its waters due to low water levels.
The
rainless spring comes on top of a winter that brought too little rain and snow
to replenish the ground soil moisture from last year. Germany’s farmers are
thus bracing for another catastrophe year. “If it stays this dry, it could be
another very difficult year for German agriculture,” Joachim Rukwied, head of
the German Farmers’ Association, told the weekly Die Zeit. “A third year of
drought in a row would hit many of our companies even harder than the last.”
“We urgently need a longer rainstorm so that the plants can develop,” he said.
In 2018,
the federal ministry of agriculture paid German farmers €228 million for lost
crop income. In 2019, however, it refused to pay a single euro. The ministry
says it has its eye on the current situation – and is praying for rain.
Germany’s
forestry and lumber industry is also watching on with trepidation. The dry
summers of the past eleven years have hurt it badly; the mass infestation of
bark beetles, which attack and kill trees by feed on their inner bark layer, have
only compounded the problems. that the destruction of Germany’s woodlands is
unprecedented in the last one hundred years. In 2018 and 2019, 110,000 hectares
of forest – about 300 million trees — were destroyed by the lethal combination
of drought, the bark beetles and severe storms.
Across
Europe the drought conditions reach from northern France all the way across
Central and Northern Europe to the borderlands of Russia. In France, wheat and
barley crops are suffering from the driest soil conditions in five years.
Europe’s other big grain producers, such as Romania and Ukraine, say that water
reserves are at high risk levels across the entire country.
According
to the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, global warming will
exacerbate soil droughts in Europe: they will last longer, affect greater
areas, and have an impact on more people. If global warming rises by three
degrees, warns the 2018 study, the drought regions in Europe will expand from
13 percent to 26 percent of the total area compared to the reference period of
1971 to 2000. The duration of the largest droughts in Europe will also last
three to four times longer than in the past. Up to 400 million people could
then be affected. If efforts are successful in limiting warming to 1.5 degrees
Celsius, as stipulated in the Paris Climate Protection Agreement, the drought
regions in Europe can be limited to 19 percent of the total area.
Aside from
genetically modified crops, such as those the US-American farmers grow, and
still more chemical fertilizers, Europe’s farmers have another alternative to
stave off ruin. The German agriculture expert Friedhelm Taube of the University
of Kiel told Energy Transition that rather than state aid for failed crops, the
state should offer incentives for farmers to shift to more diverse crops.
“In
northern Germany, farmers have been planting wheat and rapeseed year after year
because they yield the most profit. But these simple, specialized crops attract
diseases and spoil the ground soil when they’re never varied with other crops,”
says Taube. “We have to return to the kind of mixed farming system that existed
20 years ago.” He says that grass for livestock, corn and alfalfa hay are all
crops that could grow in northern Germany, and that would complement wheat and
rapeseed. These crops, says Taube, have a deep rooting systems that make them
less affected by drought and the expert suggests that the EU’s entire
agricultural policy must be rethought to encourage more diverse and stable
farming systems.
This kind
of modification, however, won’t ease the impact of years of more drought should
climate change continue to accelerate.
 |
Minimal rainfall expected in the Netherlands over
the next few weeks: Another drought this spring possible
By Emma Brown
-February 20, 20190
Minimal rainfall expected: Great for us, not so great
for the landscape
What
beautiful weather it’s been in the Netherlands over the past week and it
doesn’t stop there! We’re set for another dry winter, as minimal rain is
expected for the next few weeks at least. This echos memories from last year,
where we had such little rain, that all the fields started dying and most of
the Netherlands was just brown (and I was just red).
Another drought possible
It appears
that the panic is beginning again, as both the waterboards and the farmers are
concerned. There may well be restrictions for water usage for farmers over the
coming weeks if the weather is as predicted. This is a concern because in
general, the Netherlands really hasn’t had that much rain within the past year
even. We had yet another dry winter overall and some places have not yet
recovered from the last drought, so there are concerns on how this may affect
the country this year if there is another really dry season.
Check out
the last 2 weeks, they’re looking beautiful, but very warm and dry for
February…
As you can
see we are set for some beautiful weather, however, we will have to see if the
weather continues further like it did last year.
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