In 2022, Europe faced an extensive summer drought with severe socioeconomic consequences. Quantifying the influence of human-induced climate change on such an extreme event can help prepare for future droughts. Here, by combining observations and climate model outputs with hydrological and land-surface simulations, we show that Central and Southern Europe experienced the highest observed total water storage deficit since satellite observations began in 2002, probably representing the highest and most widespread soil moisture deficit in the past six decades. While precipitation deficits primarily drove the soil moisture drought, human-induced global warming contributed to over 30% of the drought intensity and its spatial extent via enhanced evaporation. We identify that 14–41% of the climate change contribution was mediated by the warming-driven drying of the soil that occurred before the hydrological year of 2022, indicating the importance of considering lagged climate change effects to avoid underestimating associated risks. Human-induced climate change had qualitatively similar effects on the extremely low observed river discharges. These results highlight that global warming effects on droughts are already underway, widespread and long lasting, and that drought risk may escalate with further human-induced warming in the future.

2022 年，欧洲面临大范围的夏季干旱，造成了严重的社会经济后果。量化人为引起的气候变化对此类极端事件的影响有助于为未来的干旱做好准备。在这里，通过将观测和气候模型输出与水文和陆地表面模拟相结合，我们表明，自 2002 年开始卫星观测以来，中欧和南欧经历了最高的观测到的总储水赤字，这可能是过去六十年来最高和最广泛的土壤水分亏缺。虽然降水不足主要导致了土壤水分干旱，但人为引起的全球变暖通过增加蒸发导致了超过 30% 的干旱强度及其空间范围。我们确定，14-41% 的气候变化贡献是由 2022 年水文年之前发生的变暖驱动的土壤干燥介导的，这表明考虑滞后的气候变化影响以避免低估相关风险的重要性。人为引起的气候变化对观测到的极低河流流量的影响具有定性相似的影响。这些结果强调，全球变暖对干旱的影响已经在进行中，范围广泛且持久，并且干旱风险可能会随着未来人为引起的进一步变暖而升级。