Long-term data show that Germany’s summers have gotten wetter over the past three decades, thus contradicting widespread media claims to increasing droughts over Central Europe.
Retired German meteorologist Klaus-Eckart Puls presents an analysis of Germany’s hot and dry summer this year at The European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE).
This summer produced a number of blaring headlines which claimed the unusually warm and dry weather was an undeniable sign of things to come. Climate experts warn that summers in Germany will certainly get hotter and droughts will become increasingly common, along with episodes of heavy rainfall accompanied by destructive high water.
Climate alarmists and the compliant media have now predicted hot times and droughts – based a single summer – for the next 100 years and beyond ”
No trend towards droughts
However, the veteran meteorologist points out that weather services around the world and even the IPCC have yet to detect any real trends, especially for Central Europe, namely Germany:
Using data from the German DWD national weather service, a plot of summer precipitation in millimeters for Germany was and follows:
Summer precipitation in Germany: June, July andAugust 1881-2018.
For the summer of 2018, it is estimated that Germany will see a mean precipitation of 128 mm, which will be slightly above the 124 mm record low seen way back in 1911. Summer precipitation has in fact been trending upwards over the past 30 years.
The above chart shows that there has been no trend in precipitation for Germany since systematic measurements began in 1881.
Early summer a bit wetter
And when analyzing the data for the period known as early summer (May, June , July), then we see that there has been a slight long term increase in precipitation for Germany since 1881:
May-June-July precipitation in Germany. Chart by Klaus-Eckart Puls.
Klaus-Eckart Puls also cites the IPCC concerning global trends for drought: no trend . According to the the IPCC:
There is low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness“.
This summer Germany’s extreme drought intensity was more regional than national. Southern Germany for example, saw less extreme drought conditions, according to the data from the DWD.
To the south in Austria, the summer was also dry, but was only came in the Top 20 driest, according to the Austrian ZAMG national weather service.
In the Austria-wide evaluation (up to August 29, 2018) there was 20 to 25 percent less precipitation than the long-term average. This puts the result among the 20 driest summers in the since measurements began. […] At the top is undisputedly the summer of 1873 with 32 percent less precipitation than average.”