Italy, Spain, and. Portugal have had to implement drinking water restrictions due to ongoing heat and drought.
In northern Italy, the rivers Po and Dora Baltea have dried up, leaving over 100 cities no choice but to restrict access to drinking water. Water is now for drinking and personal hygiene only. Water fountains are turned off, while sports fields, gardens, and fruit trees can't be watered until the end of summer. Any savings of water will be redirected to the rice fields in the north.
In Portugal, severe drought covers 97% of the country. At the start of 2022, a lack of rainfall and low water levels forced the nation of ten million to experience only two hours a week of hydroelectric power. The effort is to ensure that drinking water lasts for at least two years. In most parts of the nation, the current drought is the worst in over a thousand years. Over 1800 farms were ordered to halve their water consumption.
Two-thirds of Spain is at risk of desertification. Fresh water in some areas is limited to just a few hours a day and then turned off. Community water buckets are filled daily and strategically placed for water access in off-hours.
DW shares the story initially published in German.
Amplified by human-induced climate change and water over-consumption, southern Europeans are feeling the consequences of more extreme heat waves and longer droughts.
Now governments from Portugal to Italy are calling on citizens to limit water use to the bare minimum. But in some places, this is not enough.
While private consumption of water in the EU accounts for just 9% of total usage, around 60% is absorbed by agriculture.
"Droughts are one thing," said Nihat Zal, a water expert at the European Environment Agency (EEA), which informs EU environment policy. "The other is how much water we take out of the system."
Drier European summer and winters are set to become more frequent, according to a new study by the German weather service. The climatologists confirmed that after a very dry March with just one-third of the usual volume of rainfall, the post-spring drought in Europe has significantly reduced water levels.
A rainfall deficit was seen to be emerging across almost all 11 European regions studied, confirming a trend in Germany, for example, where nearly every spring since 2009 has been overly dry.
Northern Europe and Siberia will become "climatically unsuitable" for peat permafrost. The peat holds a lot of carbon, about twice the size of what is stored in the region's forests. The study assumes a moderate warming scenario, though we are currently on track for the worst-case scenario.
The study finds that under a moderate warming scenario, around 75% of this area could be too warm or too wet to maintain permafrost by the 2060s. However, the researchers stress, how much carbon is released – and over what timescales – is very much an open question.
They also warn that parts of northern Europe may be near a “tipping point”, past which its thawing peatlands cannot recover. But, they say, if strong climate change mitigation measures are taken, parts of western Siberia would maintain their suitable climate into the 2090s – and could even allow for new peatlands to form after warming peaks.
A researcher who was not involved in the research tells Carbon Brief that the study is “a crucial piece” in understanding the way permafrost peatlands will respond to a warming climate.
Permafrost peatlands store some 185bn tonnes of carbon (GtC), accounting for nearly half of the soil organic carbon held in peatlands in the northern hemisphere. Beneath an “active layer”, which thaws and refreezes each year, the frozen ground locks away carbon that has accumulated over centuries and millennia.
Because they are perpetually frozen, these peatlands are highly susceptible to the effects of climate change. When formerly frozen peat thaws, microbes start to degrade the long-buried organic material. Depending on the conditions, this can release CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
Researchers are particularly concerned about the possibility of reaching a permafrost “tipping point”. And while, in some cases, permafrost thaws slowly, under certain conditions, the landscapes can rapidly collapse.
Jeff Goodell writes on the Summer of Hell in Rolling Stone.
Published in 2021.
The big problem America faces here in the early years of the 21st century is that we built our world with the idea that we live on a stable, steady planet. The land is here, the ocean is there, and forever it shall be. The rains will come, but they will be rains like we always knew it to rain. It will get hot, but no hotter than it ever has. For 40 years now, we have ignored scientists who were telling us about the risks of dumping CO2 into the atmosphere and how it could change everything, creating a different planet than humans have ever lived on before.
Now, as the world floods and burns, the price of our willful ignorance and denial is becoming clearer. Are a few devastated towns along the Gulf Coast and waterfalls in the New York City subway system going to be what wakes us up from that? I hope so. But I fear that just as there is no “us,” there is also no “waking up.” If the pandemic has proved anything, it’s that the reservoirs of stupidity and self-destructiveness in the American mind are deeper than even the most cynical among us could have imagined. So maybe the best thing we can do right now is not pretend we will “wake up” to the monstrous reality of our time like some character in a fairy tale. Maintaining a habitable planet is going to be a long hard fight, and if this summer from hell has shown us anything, it’s that this fight has only just begun.
There is less and less time to adapt to climate change, let alone stop it. Voting is our best option to fight back against those who gain power, influence, and money from the burning of carbon. We are in the fight for our lives and it will not be easy to save the biosphere from calamity.
Answer: The Azores High-Pressure System is getting larger and more frequent.