Europe has just endured its second warmest winter on record. Much of southern and western Europe has been affected by substantial anomalies of soil moisture owing to this exceptionally dry and warm winter. Data from ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission have been used to monitor the low lev
According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, between December 2022 and February 2023, the average temperature was 1.4°C above the 1991-2020 average. Particularly in February 2023, high temperatures combined with a lack of rain saw western and southern Europe experiencing drier-than-average conditions – with several regions seeing low levels of soil moisture.
Using data from ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity , the maps show the drought index anomaly for Europe from January-March 2022 and January-March 2023, compared to the 2010-2023 reference period. Dark orange/gold in the image represents drier areas compared to the 13-year average, yellow show average conditions while green shows wetter than normal areas. Credit: CESBIO/CATDS/ESA
The SMOS satellite carries a novel interferometric radiometer that captures ‘brightness temperature’ images. These images are used to derive global maps of soil moisture every three days, achieving anof 4% at a spatial resolution of about 50 km – comparable to detecting one teaspoon of water mixed into a handful of soil.in many regions. This was more than 8% below average in parts of Spain and Türkiye.
While vegetation and crops at the beginning of the growing season haven’t been significantly affected just yet, the current situation could become critical in the coming months if temperatures and lack of precipitation will persist in spring 2023.
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