It is possible that rising global temperatures contribute to drought conditions in the 21st century, including the 2017 drought at Lago de la Ducesa, Italy, depicted here. Credits: Pamela Trisolino, EGU, CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Determining the extent to which drought conditions change worldwide is due to natural aquatic fluctuations, and the extent to which climate change is caused is a complex task. Scientists often use complex computer models to simulate past climate change and identify unprecedented drought conditions.
These models also help identify factors such as temperature, precipitation, and land use changes that promote such conditions. However, it can also show biases that can affect the reliability of drought estimates in some regions.
Wooden rings tend to grow wider in warmer, wet years and thinner in dry, colder years, thus serving as a record of natural climate change and complementary to model-based hydroclocklight reconstructions It offers a good approach.
To study droughts across Europe and Asia, Kate Marvel and colleagues share the New Great Eurasian Drought Atlas (GEDA) which includes records from thousands of individual trees that grew between 1000 and 2020. We turned to tree ring measurements. This study has been published in the journal AGU Advances.
The team split the GEDA data across the same land areas as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on the Sixth Assessment Report of Climate Change. Tree ring measurements from 1000 to 1849 were used to estimate pre-industrial variation in the average Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) (a general measure of drought risk) for each region. We then assessed whether these pre-industrial variability could explain modern (1850-2020) PDSI values.
Researchers have discovered that in many regions, modern PDSI changes can be explained more accurately by rising global temperatures, suggesting that 21st century drought conditions are unlikely to occur solely by natural fluctuations. I’m doing it. Findings show that Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean and Arctic Russia are respectively dry as the climate warms, while Northern Europe, Eastern Asia and Tibet are wet.
Researchers note that tree rings can be influenced by factors other than climate change. However, databases such as GEDA usually contain data on selectively sampled locations and tree species, which are the main factors that influence tree ring growth, so these factors significantly affect the outcome. It is unlikely to give it.
More information: Kate Marvel et al, Global Warming is likely to affect droughts across Eurasia, AGU Advances (2025). doi: 10.1029/2024AV001289
The story has been reissued courtesy of EOS, hosted by the American Geophysics Union. Read the original story here.
Quote: Treering’s Records reveal changes in climate-driven droughts across Europe and Asia (February 24, 2025) February 24, 2025 https://phys.org/news/2025 -Retrieved from -02-tree-reveal climate driven. HTML
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