At the European Meteorological Society (EMS) Annual Meeting 2026 in Utrecht, researcher Ray Kettaren presented new insights into how human-induced climate warming accelerates and deepens multi-year droughts across Europe. Utilizing an innovative storyline attribution approach, combining spectrally nudged climate simulations with the mesoscale Hydrologic Model (mHM), the study isolated thermal impacts on the severe 2018–2022 European soil moisture drought sequence. The results reveal that without anthropogenic climate change, the 2018–2022 period would have seen a soil-moisture surplus nearly double the magnitude of present-day losses, with drought spatial extent restricted to just one-third of current levels. Looking ahead to future warming levels of +2 K to +4 K, water volume deficits are projected to swell from -82 km3 up to -256 km3, expanding the affected area to over 40% of the continent. The research demonstrates how rising global temperatures increasingly transition single-year dry spells into persistent, multi-year hydrological crises, reinforcing the urgent need for proactive climate adaptation across European water resource management. Link to the full paper published in Earth’s Future.