The 1820s Marks a Shift to Hotter-Drier Summers in Western Europe Since 1360

• Recent soil moisture (SM) reconstructions revealed plunging trends and enhanced SM-temperature couplings over the last two decades in dry regions. However, how SM changed and whether the land-atmosphere interaction was intensified over time in humid regions remained unknown. Here we reported the first six-century-long regional summer SM reconstruction (1360-2000 CE) in western Europe (WE) using three individual tree-ring delta O-18 chronologies in England and France. A sharp wet-to-dry change occurred around 1820, earlier than 1850-1900 CE, the commonly used historical baseline of anthropogenic climate changes. Enhanced coupling of SM-temperature followed, with stronger summer sea level pressure anomalies in dry years after the 1820s. Our results reveal that the hotter-drier regime has also become more frequent in humid WE under global warming.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Geologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Geology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

soil moisture

land-atmosphere coupling

climate change

tree-ring

isotope

western Europe

soil-moisture

oxygen isotopes

climate-change

drought

reconstructions

precipitation

temperatures

density

Geology

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)