In recent years, summers with little rainfall have repeatedly led to severe summer droughts. Purely precipitation-based deficits (meteorological drought) have so far been an expression of natural variability; decades with comparable or even greater deficits have occurred several times over the past 210 years. During the summer droughts of recent years, soils also dried out very severely (soil moisture drought), as evaporation has increased over recent decades. This can largely be attributed to climate change, though partly also to declining aerosol concentrations. Statements about meteorological drought in the context of climate change are still subject to considerable uncertainty. Even though there will always be wet and dry decades, rising temperatures favour soil drying, meaning that soil moisture droughts will become both drier and more intense in the future.

Find out more about these key findings from Douglas Maraun and Laurenz Roither in the new CCCA Fact Sheet "Droughts in Climate Change: Precipitation and Soil Moisture".