“I desperately need water,” pleads farmer Lars Jonsson, as he looks out over his parched field in eastern Denmark, where the only shade comes from wind turbines.
Across the northern hemisphere, the beginning of summer has been marked by extreme weather conditions, from devastating fires in Canada to drought in Spain.
Even Northern Europe, known for its typically mild climate, has experienced an unusually dry spring and early summer. Experts are warning of a high risk of forest fires, similar to the ones that devastated central Sweden in 2018.
“I’m extremely concerned about the weather because it’s incredibly dry right now,” says Jonsson.
“I check my phone for the weather forecast numerous times a day, hoping for even a little rain in the coming week,” he adds, smartphone in hand.
This spring has seen very little rainfall, with none at all since May 23. As a result, Jonsson’s grain crops are 25 percent shorter than usual.
According to the European monitoring service Copernicus, 90 percent of Denmark was affected by drought at the end of May.
“Look, the roots are nearly dried out,” says 62-year-old Jonsson as he pulls up a plant.
Jonsson has been running a pork and grain farm north of Copenhagen since 1989, and a portion of his barley crop is sold to Danish brewer Carlsberg.
However, this year, his barley production is expected to be 30 percent lower due to the drought.
The extent of his losses will depend on grain prices in the autumn.
“I hope the price will increase a bit so that my bottom line remains stable. But if the price stays the same, my bottom line will be in bad shape,” Jonsson explains.
Jonsson may even have to let go of one of his two employees, as he did in 2018.
Until now, his region has largely been spared the effects of climate change, says Jonsson.
Scandinavian sunflowers?
One of the most noticeable impacts of climate change has been the higher temperatures.
“It’s much warmer… I have to reconsider what I will be planting in my fields in the future,” says Jonsson, who also grows rye and wheat in a region where grain irrigation is prohibited.
He may need to start growing crops traditionally associated with more southerly regions.
“Perhaps I can start growing crops like sunflowers or soybeans, which are more commonly found in France. Maybe I can grow them here in Denmark,” Jonsson muses.
“Denmark isn’t typically associated with drought,” says Jens Hesselbjerg, a climatologist at the University of Copenhagen.
“Drought has never been considered one of the possible outcomes of climate change in Denmark. We have mainly focused on the consequences of extreme precipitation.”
Despite experts periodically mentioning drought as a potential consequence of climate change, “they didn’t think it would happen here”.
‘Increasingly frequent’ droughts
However, periods without rainfall have become longer and more common in Denmark, a country with a population of 5.9 million.
Authorities are now advising people to conserve water and have implemented a ban on open fires in the wild.
Similar concerns are mounting in other Nordic nations.
According to Copernicus, 51 percent of Finland and 48 percent of Sweden are currently affected by drought. Sweden still remembers the 2018 fires that consumed approximately 25,000 hectares of woodland.
On Thursday, Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin confirmed that authorities were on high alert and better equipped to fight fires and assist farmers.
Climatologist Gustav Strandberg notes that Sweden is experiencing the driest start to June in at least 20 years.
In Finland, temperatures have hovered around 30°C in Helsinki this week, well above average, with a “significant risk” of forest fires in southwestern areas, as meteorologist Tuomo Bergman told AFP.
Despite a 20 percent increase in overall precipitation since 1900 due to climate change, Norway is also experiencing an unusually dry period. Meteorologist Hakon Mjelstad explains that while it rains more, the precipitation is concentrated in short bursts, rather than spread out over time, which is needed.
Forest fire warnings have been raised to the highest level in large parts of southern and southeastern Norway, and all open fires, except for backyard barbecues, are prohibited.
“Dry summers like the one we are expecting used to be rare,” says Mjelstad.
“But they will become increasingly frequent simply because it is getting warmer on Earth.”
© 2023 AFP
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Forest fire risks mount in drought-hit Nordic nations (2023, June 16)
retrieved 16 June 2023
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