Droughts on the Rise for 121 Years, Blame the Atmosphere

Drought has been increasing steadily throughout the world for 121 years and the situation has worsened further since 1981 and then since 2018. The origin of this trend is the increasingly 'thirsty' atmosphere , so dry that it tears moisture from the ground . This is indicated by the data of the study published in the journal Nature and coordinated by the University of Oxford, with the group of Solomon Gebrechorkos. Our planet is not only warming at record speed , but above all it is recording an increase in extreme events , with intense rainfall and decidedly arid periods. The latter, observe the authors of the research, would not be determined only by the absence of rainfall, but would be the result of a complex set of parameters that are not easy to quantify. Combining historical data , field measurements and satellite data , the researchers have reconstructed the history of the increase in drought at a global level from 1901 to 2022 . A continuously growing curve emerged with an accelerated trend over time . Starting from 1901, for 80 years the trend of droughts has increased steadily in a gradual manner until in 1981 an acceleration of the trend of 40% was recorded, which remained unchanged for 37 years. Since 2018 , a further acceleration has been recorded, to the point that in the last 5 years the extension of the areas of the world affected by drought has increased by 74% compared to the previous 40 years. The worst year was 2022, the last one considered by the study, when 30% of the earth's surface was affected by moderate and extreme droughts, especially in Europe and Eastern Africa. The study highlights that globally, the driest areas are becoming even drier and humid areas are now experiencing drought trends, the only exceptions being regions, such as southern and south-eastern Asia or eastern North America , which have been showing a trend of increasing humidity over the past 40 years . The authors of the research note that the spread of drought is largely driven by the so-called ' atmospheric evaporative demand ' which measures the 'thirst' of the atmosphere, or its ability to extract water vapor from the soil or plants . The phenomenon is due to a mix of elements, such as temperature, humidity, wind and pressure which, combined together, make dry periods much more intense. The repercussions involve entire ecosystems , as also underlined by the research published in Science in January 2025 , under the guidance of the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, which had identified over 13 thousand drought events lasting over 2 years in less than 40 years, between 1980 and 2018. Events like these could also have significant economic impacts in Europe, so much so that the European Commission estimates a reduction in GDP of around 7% by the end of the century due to climate change.