The exceptional 2018 European water seesaw.

Europe experienced exceptional climate conditions in spring and summer 2018. The extreme drought in central and northern Europe heavily affected key socio-economic sectors. While, anomalous wet conditions in southern Europe favoured sectors such as agriculture triggering crop yield gains that partially offset the losses in central and northern Europe. Paleoclimate reconstructions show the uniqueness of the 2018 concurrent climate anomalies in central Europe, although five similar drought events were observed in the last decades. Future climate projections, under the high-end emission scenario RCP8.5, show that drought events similar to the one of 2018 could become the norm in central Europe, while favourable conditions in southern Europe will become extremely rare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]