Are droughts and heavy rains increasing?

The dry years of 2018 and 2019 have no precedent in the past 250 years. Since 1766, Central Europe has not seen a two-year summer drought of this magnitude, which has affected more than 50 percent of the arable land.³ In addition, the Drought Monitor of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig shows that soil overall in Germany, down to an average depth of 1.80 meters, is experiencing the third consecutive year of drought during the vegetation period.⁴

Numerous sectors of the economy are feeling the effects of droughts, such as energy production and industry. During the extremely dry years of 2018 and 2019, for example, the water levels of the Rhine and Elbe rivers fell so sharply that, for weeks and even months, inland waterway vessels were only able to operate to a limited extent, if at all. Refineries and chemical plants had to reduce their production on the Rhine due to waterway transport restrictions⁵ , and because there was a lack of cooling water, the energy output of coal-fired and nuclear power plants was temporarily reduced.⁶ The affected industries suffered hundreds of millions of euros in economic damage.⁷

If climate change continues unchecked, scientists anticipate a dramatic increase in the risk of drought and all it entails. Global warming by a further three degrees Celsius would mean, for example, that periods of drought for parts of southwest Germany would double compared with the period from 1971 to 2000.⁸