Chinanews.com, Beijing, August 7 (Reporter Sun Zifa) Springer Nature’s open access journal "Science Reports" recently published a climate change research paper saying that if the estimated greenhouse gas emissions will not fall, then By the end of this century, the frequency of record-breaking two-year droughts like the 2018-2019 Central Europe drought is expected to increase.
The corresponding author of the paper, the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Germany, Vittal Hari and colleagues, through the analysis of long-term global climate data from 1766 to 2019, assessed the impact of the drought in Central Europe from 2018 to 2019 and found that 2018 The degree of dryness in the summer of 2019 and 2019 was higher than the average, and it was among the top three hottest summers on record. More than 50% of Central Europe suffered the largest and most impactful two-year severe drought on record, followed by the drought of 1949-1950, but its impact was 33% smaller.
The author of the paper used a computer model of global climate change to predict what might happen to the frequency of droughts in the next few decades and whether greenhouse gas emissions will have an impact. In a simulated climate scenario with the highest growth rate of greenhouse gas emissions, they predicted that the number of droughts in Europe in the second half of this century (2051-2100) will increase by 7 times. The forecast results also show that the area of agricultural land affected by drought in Central Europe will nearly double, including more than 40 million hectares of arable land.
In a climate scenario that simulates greenhouse gas emissions, the number of droughts predicted in the two-year period will be reduced by nearly half; in a low-emission climate scenario, the frequency of droughts will be reduced by more than 90%. At the same time, the number of drought-prone areas under these two scenarios is expected to decrease by 37% and 60%, respectively.
The author of the paper believes that the predictions of the above research analysis indicate that measures to reduce future carbon emissions may reduce the risk of frequent and continuous drought events in Europe. (Finish)