Scenarios assessing the influence of climate variability on drought in Europe

Regional drought events defined by streamflow deficiencies derived from more than 600 streamflow data records from the European Water Archive (EWA) were assessed in this study. Through logistic regression, the events were linked to the occurrence of the European "Grosswetterlagen", atmospheric circulation patterns (CPS), which describe the synoptic meteorological situation. Two scenarios of changed CP frequencies were generated to represent changed climatic conditions. The non-significant response to a scenario motivated by recently observed trends in the CP frequencies indicates no aggravation of the drought risk for the four selected regions in the UK, Norway and Germany. Seasonal scenarios of changed high pressure and low pressure patterns suggest a strong influence of winter recharge on drought conditions for the southeast of the UK. The results indicate the potential of the method for the assessment of the impact of climate change on drought in Europe.