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Flash droughts in Central Europe and their circulation drivers

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Abstract

Flash droughts, defined as events with unusually rapid onset and intensification, are emerging into the spotlight as dangerous subseasonal climatic phenomena capable of causing substantial socioenvironmental impacts. However, research on their spatiotemporal variability and major drivers in Central Europe has been limited thus far. This study used gridded soil moisture data from the SoilClim model for the region consisting of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and northern part of Austria in the 1961–2021 period. Established methods of flash drought detection were implemented and adapted to conduct their comprehensive spatiotemporal analysis. The gridded flash drought results were divided into four clusters using the Ward’s hierarchical agglomerative method. Individual flash drought episodes were delimited for each cluster, divided into three phases (onset, course, end) and investigated separately in terms of drivers, represented by three meteorological variables (precipitation, actual evapotranspiration, maximum temperature) and atmospheric circulation types based on the objective classification (derived from flow strength, direction and vorticity). The frequency of flash droughts slightly decreased in the winter half-year and slightly increased in the summer half-year, with substantial amplification in the April–June season. The increase was slower than in the case of seasonal droughts, being driven by the longer-term accumulation of water deficit. Circulation drivers exhibited much stronger and more direct influence in the summer half-year, particularly causing the onset of flash drought episodes during the predominance of anticyclonic types and absence of cyclonic types, while the course of flash drought episodes was also connected to increased temperatures and often connected to warm airflow.

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Data used in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Livia Labudova and Dr. Katarina Mikulova (Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute) and entire http://www.intersucho.sk for co-developing drought intensity data for Slovak Republic with the authors. We acknowledge American Journal Experts for English style corrections.

Funding

This research was funded by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic for SustES – Adaptation strategies for sustainable ecosystem services and food security under adverse environmental conditions project ref. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000797. Jan Řehoř also received funding from Masaryk University within the MUNI/A/1323/2022.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Jan Řehoř & Rudolf Brázdil

  2. Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic

    Jan Řehoř, Rudolf Brázdil, Miroslav Trnka & Jan Balek

  3. Department of Agrosystems and Bioclimatology, Mendel University in Brno, Brno, Czech Republic

    Miroslav Trnka & Jan Balek

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  1. Jan Řehoř
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Řehoř, J., Brázdil, R., Trnka, M. et al. Flash droughts in Central Europe and their circulation drivers. Clim Dyn 62, 1107–1121 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-023-06964-8

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