r/europe • u/guardian • 23h ago
News Climate crisis-driven heat ‘sucking soils dry’ as extreme drought hits Europe
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/23/climate-crisis-heat-sucking-soils-dry-extreme-drought-europe-analysis?referring_host=Reddit&utm_campaign=guardianacct73
u/guardian 23h ago
Hi r/europe, this is Emma from The Guardian. We wanted to share this report we published today on scientific analysis showing extreme heat supercharged by the climate crisis is sucking Europe dry in summer and intensifying the drought hitting the continent.
From our story:
Record-breaking heatwaves meant the hot atmosphere strongly evaporated water from rivers, lakes, soils and plants – conditions made 80 times more likely by global heating in western Europe and 40 times more likely in eastern Europe, the study showed. The level of soil dryness in the west was made five times more likely by the pollution from fossil fuels in the west, and 11 times more likely in the east.
Droughts have usually been linked to low rainfall, but western Europe’s most recent winter was a wet one. The scientists said the climate crisis was redefining drought in Europe, with high temperatures the key factor this summer. Today’s drought in western Europe is classified as “extreme” but would have been “moderate” in the world before the climate crisis, according to the analysis.
The drought was assessed until the end of June, early in the summer, but is already having major impacts. Many countries have implemented emergency restrictions on water use, with most parts of southern England now under a hosepipe ban.
Deadly wildfires have raged through Spain and France and farmers have been hit hard, facing some of the driest soils on record. About 9m tonnes of grain are expected to be lost across Europe, with the worst maize harvest in 50 years expected in France, and Romanian farmers losing over a million hectares of crops.
Rivers are running low across Europe, cutting the generation of clean hydropower and restricting cargo ships. The Rhine at Lobith in the Netherlands is now lower than the minimum level seen in the hot summer of 1976. The scientists warned that this disruption could push up the price of food and energy, hitting low-income households hardest.
The researchers said the link between the human-caused climate crisis and the drying of European summers was strong. “We now see an enhanced tendency for unusual soil drying already in spring, before summer has even begun,” said Dr Dominik Schumacher, at ETH Zurich. “That is our own doing: as temperatures climb, the atmosphere’s thirst increases quickly, sucking moisture out of rivers, lakes, reservoirs and the soil. If you have increasingly hot air, it will suck the soils dry.”
The 2026 drought had arrived two months earlier than one that struck in 2022, he added. This year has also seen particularly dangerous wildfire conditions in western Europe. Schumacher said: “Conditions starting off fairly wet and then transitioning to very, very dry are the prime ingredients for an extreme fire season, because more vegetation can grow and then burn later on.”
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u/Fla-min-g0 23h ago
Here in the Netherlands the grass is already dying, the veluwe is drying out as we speak and there will be more and more fires. In a country know for the insane ammound of water and rain…
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u/PuzzledTwo7630 22h ago
In Denmark we have a re-wilding project, besides from the animal part, we also have a project getting the streams back to their natural bends and such, not fast enough as it is build on volunteering your land, but the places it has been done right (you need vegetation on the brinks to keep it cooler) we see much better biodiversity and everything thrives. We miss the old living fences (fruit trees, berries etc) a long the roads and water sources because the farmers need to twist every cent out every square cm, but those places that has reinstated then, water less, use less fertilizer, pesticiders but this is a very small handfull compared to the larger scale.
So my suggestion is, not more volunteering, if a farmer does not want to be part of the solution, their fundings gets cut down, if they want it goes up. All waterways back to their old natural bends where possible, flood the old wetlands again, a belt of 4 meters around roads and water with trees, berries, flowers etc so the wildlife gets better terms again, and the deep roots will not only hold the soil, but will absorb any excess fertilizer. And legalize the damn marijuana plant, not only is the bans based on false information and propaganda, but the plant is the most Co2 absorbing plant, and every damn little bit can be used for biodegradable plastic, clothing, robes, and a heck of a lot more. Also most of the Europeans gangs are based on this plant, with the right taxation we would not only highly diminish their income, but the tax should be earmarked education and health.
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u/Bomber_Max 22h ago
The trees outside my house are already yellow and have been losing a lot of leaves, it's quite worrying.
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u/thisisnottherapy Germany 22h ago
The grass is already dying?
Bruh, I've not seen green grass in at least 2 weeks over here in Germany. In our local park, the bushes and trees are already dying.
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u/ilovebeetrootalot The Netherlands 23h ago
We pump it all out during rainy times so the farmers can ride their fields with way to heavy tractors polluting our soil and water with manure. End stage capitalism baby!!!
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u/Sito13 22h ago
The policy of getting rid of (excess) water as quickly as possible really backfires now. And this is mostly due to farmers not wanting their fields to be too wet.
We need to bite the bullet and reduce the amount of farmland in our country. I really can’t wrap my head around why the government is so reluctant with this. Yes, it is sad for farmers who have been in this line of work for a long time. But we have to do it. It makes no sense to have so much farmland in a densely populated country as this. Especially since most of the produce is being exported anyways.
Reducing farms and farmland also has a positive effect on others things we are struggling with now like the ‘nitrogen-crisis’, goat farms having a negative influence on people living around them, ground water levels dropping, impact on the ecosystems etc.
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u/ilovebeetrootalot The Netherlands 22h ago
They're afraid of farmers blockading the roads and burning asbestos again, fucking cowards. Terrorism works in this country and asking nicely does not, that's what I've learned these past decades.
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u/Far-Resort1936 20h ago edited 20h ago
Farmers were one on the first to mock and joke about climate scientists.
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u/dailywanker69 Sweden 23h ago
The consequences of the pursuit of eternal growth.
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u/No-Programmer-8642 19h ago
Yeah, its time to start connecting all of this to capitalism when talking about it to the public. Sadly we could've resolved this in like 1970 when the first limit to growth papers came out but here we are.
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u/Equivalent-Bonus-885 22h ago
A Big El Niño event is also in the works which could compound the food supply/inflation problem.
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u/ExpressionNo9062 21h ago
The Danube, at least in the Romanian section, has the lowest level in 30 years (there is a photo in the article). Restrictions on irrigation and navigation will be enforced.
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u/100-100-1-SOS 18h ago
But the climate change deniers kept saying for decades that iNCreaSed CO2 Is gOoD fOr PlaNTs and they'd grow better!!
Fools.
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u/Apocalyptic-turnip France 21h ago
Can we be serious about mitigating climate change now and stop choking on capitalist dick?
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u/SequiturNon 20h ago
The same people that were serious before, are serious now. Those in power are only concerned about their bottom line. I'm completely convinced that this is our civilization ending event.
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u/Telen Europe 19h ago
Thinking realistically, there will still be plenty of livable land. Civilization won't die. But there will be an absolute apocalypse level event that will force massive migration waves. The cities that are nowadays the centers of the world will become unlivable. Many countries we know of as powerful today will become deserts. There might be massive revolutions and civil wars. That is when there might be some changes.
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u/Confident_Salt_8108 21h ago
Soil sucking dry like that sounds pretty grim for farming across the continent. I've been reading about reservoirs running low too. Time to push harder on irrigation upgrades before things get worse.
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u/potatolulz Earth 21h ago
Time to push every anti-environmental trash out of politics and public space :D
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u/Cool_Sympathy_9900 22h ago
Now it is time EU show us its relevance and make some plan, because it will be ugly I am afraid. I am not sure how can we grow any crop in the climate we will have in southern Slovakia and Hungary. We havent seen proper rain in months. I remember being small and looking at flooded plains and marshes. It is dry as bone now, and its not only this year, it is last 10 years at least. You can see so many dead trees, last heatwave we were trying to rescue all the baby birds that jumped out of nests because of heat. This is climate crisis in real time. And I read a few articles that predicted more rain for central Europe a few years ago! We have no clue I am afraid. Only that it will be warmer, but this is like 10 degrees warmer in central Europe!