This is the finding of a new study in which a German-Czech research team placed the two drought years of 2018 and 2019 within the context of long-term global climate data spanning the past 250 years. The result: since 1766, Central Europe has not experienced two consecutive summer droughts of this magnitude, as the researchers report in the journal Scientific Reports. More than 50 per cent of Central Europe's surface area was severely affected.

"It's important that we recognise the significance of droughts in consecutive years and develop a holistic framework for modelling the risk," emphasises Rohini Kumar, lead author of the study from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig.

Read the report at: science.orf.at