As Europe bakes this summer season underneath record heat waves, droughts have additionally precipitated water ranges to plunge on rivers and lakes throughout the continent.
Within the Netherlands, the Waal river is so low it has fallen under the underside marker on bridges.
In Germany, the Rhine is so dry it’s causing shipping problems.
And in Spain, receding waters in a single reservoir have revealed a prehistoric treasure.
The Dolmen of Guadalperal, or Spanish Stonehenge, has been exposed within the province of Cáceres for simply the fourth time because the Sixties. The stones date again 1000’s of years however had been flooded as a result of improvement underneath the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
Elsewhere in Europe, so-called “hunger stones” are appearing in rivers as soon as extra — markers positioned by folks in droughts from years previous.
It’s not unusual for water ranges to drop in the summertime months, however this yr is especially excessive.
“It is fairly extraordinary, notably for this time of yr,” Martina Becker from German firm HGK Delivery advised the BBC. “That is an uncommon scenario for us and the query is what occurs in October, when the often dry months arrive. We’re already approaching the document low stage we had in 2018. We might attain that stage subsequent week.”
Climate disasters like droughts are inextricably linked to human-induced local weather change. The planet has already warmed 2.1 levels Fahrenheit since 1880, according to NASA, and that’s making disasters worse. Stopping this vicious cycle would require drastically decreasing our reliance on climate-polluting fossil fuels.
