Global Warming Threatens to Dry Out Europe’s Crop Fields

(Bloomberg) -- Persistent drought that’s stressing production of crops like wheat and corn across swathes of Europe could become more normal in the future, threatening food output.

That’s according to two European Union studies that show climate change is reducing soil moisture in key grain-growing parts of the bloc, with droughts likely to become more frequent throughout the rest of the century. The findings highlight the risks to crops that the region’s 500 million people use and export, underscoring how economies may need to find new ways to adapt cultivation to drier climates. 

“Even when it does rain, sometimes it’s only falling heavily and for short periods,” said Joaquin Muñoz Sabater, a scientist at the Copernicus Climate Change Service who studies soil moisture across Europe. “So even if it looks wet, the soil isn’t always able to regenerate because temperatures after the rainfall remain high.”

Copernicus’s “European State of the Climate” survey reported soil-moisture at historically low levels last year, while scientists at the EU’s Joint Research Center forecast increasingly more severe drought in southern Europe through 2100.

The research comes amid warnings that a catastrophic lack of rain in parts of Europe is again threatening farmers recovering from the hottest year on record. European mean temperatures in the last five years shot 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above averages recorded in the second half of the 19th century, according to Copernicus. 

Europe suffered three distinct heat waves in 2019, and 11 of the 12 hottest years ever recorded took place in the past two decades, according to Copernicus. Floods in parts of the continent around the end of the year couldn’t help farmland fully recover from long periods of drought, and soil moisture wound up at its second-lowest level since at least 1979. Central Europe and areas around the Baltic Sea were particularly hard hit. 

Copernicus draws its conclusions from billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world, while other EU scientists are developing new forecasting methods by examining how the atmosphere circulates precipitation and heat. Together, the methods can warn policy makers and farmers when meteorological dryness driven by weather turns into droughts induced by climate change that sap water reserves needed for irrigation.

“Meteorological droughts will likely increase in frequency and severity in large areas of the world,” EU-led researchers wrote in a paper due to be published next month by the American Meteorological Society. Farmers in Mediterranean countries will face more frequent and severe drought, while those farming at high altitudes in the Northern Hemisphere could retain more soil moisture. 

The increasing volume of satellite data being crunched by Copernicus and other scientists is already feeding into European policy and business. Heineken NV used Copernicus data to improve beer brewing by lowering the amount of water needed in the process. Broker Marex Spectron Group Ltd. has used the information to forecast coffee, sugar and cocoa yields.

“When you talk about fruit trees, and vineyards, olives or cacao—cultivation that requires a long return on investment—understanding the long trend is important,” Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo said in an interview. “It can help farmers make the decision to transition from one crop to another.”

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