Fossil fuel era among the wettest periods of the millennium in Czechia

Over the period since 1960, drought has worsened because the end of this series included dry years. However, if we count from the 18th century, precipitation has in fact increased.

It was only at the beginning of 2019 that data summarising the dry year of 2018 were published. So it is time for a brief look back, no longer based on sensationalist newspaper headlines, but on facts.

In some parts of the country, the 2018 drought was the worst since the beginning of the 20th century. High evaporation due to high summer temperatures contributed to this. Nevertheless, the data from the past hundred years show no trend; it appears to have been more of a random fluctuation. No such records were broken in other parts of the country. On some rivers, water levels remained high thanks to dams and ponds. [1]

We experienced a similarly dry period in the 1940s. During the crop failures of the dry years, the US offered us food aid under the Marshall Plan. As is known, the drought then affected political history. Stalin forced us to reject American aid and instead sent us grain aid himself (from grain confiscated from starving peasants in Ukraine).

We experienced another dry period in the 1860s. It culminated in a bark beetle outbreak in Šumava, which was fictionalised by Karel Klosterman (“From the world of forest solitudes”). The very dry decade of around 1861–1870 is evidenced by the fact that Lake Neusiedl, which lies in the Austrian federal state of Burgenland and western Hungary, nearly dried up completely in 1864–1870.

If we look further back in history, the droughts mentioned from the 20th century look like a walk in the park. Precipitation in Europe and the Mediterranean increased throughout the past 200 years, i.e. throughout the entire era of fossil fuel combustion. In earlier, pre-industrial history, droughts were far worse. [3]

In any case, the droughts of the past century or recent decades do not deviate in any way from the natural and usual variability of the climate. It is misleading to cite only the trend of the past few decades, without the context of the entire millennium. In conclusion, I would like to quote what Markonis, a co-author of the Czech study and a climatologist, says: “In the context of ongoing debates on drought and its current impacts, however, it is striking that the past ninety years have been among the wettest in Europe in the entire millennium.”[5] The question, however, is what happens to precipitation once it falls on the ground. Land use has changed over the past 100 years and its ability to retain water has declined. Nevertheless, despite this, according to the study by Hanel, Marconis et al. (2018), it appears that neither the geographical extent nor the intensity of the droughts of 2003 and 2015 was exceptional in a historical context.[6]

That the past approximately 30 years have been among the wettest periods in Europe (outside the Mediterranean) for a millennium is also confirmed by a recent study on which renowned US expert E.R. Cook collaborated with Czech scientists (2018). [7].

CHART 1: Flows on the Oder at the Ostrava-Svinov gauge. In some parts of the country, the 2018 drought was not record-breaking. For example, on the Oder. [1]

Originally written for OSEL.cz

REFERENCES:

[1] Daňhelka, J., Kubát, J. et al. Drought in 2018. Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, Prague 2019.

[2] Brázdil, R., Trnka, M. et al. Drought in the Czech lands – past, present, future. History of weather and climate in the Czech lands, Volume XI: Brno, CzechGlobe 2015.

[3] Cook, E. R. et al. Old World megadroughts and pluvials during the Common Era. Science Advances, 6.10.2015, Vol. 1, No. 10.

[4] Cook, E.R. et al.North American Megadroughts in the Common Era: Reconstructions and Simulations. WIREs Climatic Change 2016. doi: 10.1002/wcc.39

[5] It is hot outside, but according to Czech scientists Europe has the most water in a thousand years (iDnes).

[6] Hanel, M. et al. Revisiting the recent European droughts from a long-term perspective. Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 9499 (2018)

[7] Markonis et al. Persistent multi-scale fluctuations shift European hydroclimate to its millennial boundaries. Nature Communications, Volume 9, Article number: 1767 (2018)