Recent enhanced drought in monsoonal Asia and Europe - inferred from tree-ring oxygen isotope record byDr Wenlin AN (Institute of Geology and Geophysics of Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Recent widespread and frequent droughts have had devastating ecological and economic consequences over monsoonal Asia and the Europe, but the severity and cause of these extremes remain unclear. Tree-ring oxygen isotope (δ¹⁸O) has been widely used in reconstructing continuous, high-resolution drought history. In monsoonal Asia and the Europe, the drought reconstructions derived from tree-ring δ¹⁸O over the past centuries are characterized by a gradually drying trend since around 1850s. Especially, the frequency and severity of droughts in recent decades has been outside the envelope of natural variability of extreme droughts. Recent enhanced droughts in these regions could have been caused by the weakened monsoon, enhanced evapotranspiration and land-atmospheric coupling.