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Too bad the OP's links are behind paywalls ... it's a horrible shame how much clean fresh sparkling mountain spring water flows into the Pacific here in The West ... I think the Columbia River has the second largest discharge in the nation ... straight into the ocean ... with all the extra hydro-electricity on-hand, it would be easy to pump that water up to the high desert and let her flow down to California ... easy peasy ...
Climate Change means warmer and wetter ... more rain more widely distributed ...
Ya, that must be why the Colorado snow pack has been well above average 4 out of the last 7 years with 2 of those years being records. And lake Powell is up over 30'.
Quit listening to clowns who can't get money for research if they don't predict doom and gloom. Just like Kung Flu projections, shit in, shit out.
And don't forget Flaming Gorge has to draw down every year in the last decade to make room for run off and is doing it again this year.
states-snowpack-still-below-average-despite-wet-march
While California's snowpack in March was in better condition than it was in February, the month's precipitation was not enough to offset the state's dry winter, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
A survey DWR officials conducted in the Sierra Nevada on Wednesday measured snow depth at 43.5 inches, with 16.5 inches of water contained in the snowpack.
The measurement is two-thirds of the April average at the Phillips Station survey site. Statewide snow level sensors also showed that the snowpack's water level was down 53% from April averages.
Current Situation and Impacts in the West
Snow Drought
Snowpack typically acts as a natural reservoir, providing water throughout the drier summer months. Lack of snowpack storage, or a shift in timing of snowmelt from that reservoir, can be a challenge for drought planning. Snow drought is a period of abnormally little snowpack for the time of...www.drought.gov
April 2, 2020
After an extremely dry February, particularly in CA and NV where many locations were record dry, active weather returned during March. Stormy weather has led to above normal precipitation over the past 30 days for much of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. Despite the wet weather, snow water equivalent (SWE) averaged over large river basins (HUC 6) in south-central Arizona and New Mexico saw the greatest percent of average declines over the past month in the West. The Salt River basin in Arizona and the Upper Gila river basin that straddles the Arizona-New Mexico border are both currently at 29% of normal SWE. This is partially due to warmer temperatures with recent storms and rain in the mountains driving warm snow drought conditions. These lower latitude locations also reach peak snowpack earlier in the season and late March is already the melt season.
In contrast to the active weather in the Southwest, the majority of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon were drier than normal for March. Cooler than normal temperatures, however, helped to preserve the snowpack already in the Pacific Northwest mountains with gains in SWE during the storms that did move into the region. The exceptions are the eastern slopes of the central and northern Cascades in Washington, the Okanogan basin of Washington (SWE ranges from 55 to 75% of normal), and south-central Idaho, specifically the Sawtooth Mountains (with a cluster of stations below the 20th percentile). In southwest Oregon, the snowpack entered March well below average, but benefitted somewhat from recent storms, increasing to 79% of normal in the Klamath basin. The relative lack of snow in this region has contributed to developing moderate-to-extreme drought conditions in Klamath, Jackson, and Josephine counties. A drought declaration in Klamath county was approved in late February in significant part due to the water supply issues caused by the lean snow year.
I wonder if we are in for another dust bowl, combined with economic collapse. This is also includes areas that have seen a big increase in population.
'Megadrought' emerging in the western US might be worse than any in 1,200 years
Fueled in part by human-caused climate change, a “megadrought” appears to be emerging in the western U.S., a study published Thursday suggests.
In fact, the nearly-20-year drought is almost as bad or worse than any in the past 1,200 years, scientists say.
Megadroughts – defined as intense droughts that last for decades or longer – once plagued the Desert Southwest. Thanks to global warming, an especially fierce one appears to be coming back:
"We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we're on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts," said study lead author A. Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University, in a statement. This is “a drought bigger than what modern society has seen."
Scientists say that about half of this historic drought can be blamed on man-made global warming. Some of the impacts today include shrinking reservoirs and worsening wildfire seasons.
Megadroughts could return to southwestern U.S.
Severe droughts parched western North America hundreds of years ago. They may return, thanks to climate change.www.nationalgeographic.com
Described in a comprehensive new study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, scientists now understand the causes of the megadroughts common during the medieval period. With climate change, they predict more megadroughts in the future.
"What’s new here is they are really putting the pieces together in a way that hasn’t been done before,” says Connie Woodhouse, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who was uninvolved with the study.
A string of decade-long droughts occurred in the American Southwest during the medieval period, between 800 and 1600 CE. The researchers tied together previously existing theories about megadroughts to discover three main drivers.
Lead author Nathan Steiger, a climate scientist at Columbia University, says that the study was “exciting scientifically, but [the] consequences are not good” for a warming future.
Their analysis pinpoints three main factors causing megadroughts in the American Southwest: Cooling water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, warming water in the Atlantic Ocean, and something called radiative forcing. A novel part of this study, Steiger says, was “showing that radiative forcing is important too for causing these megadroughts.”
If we have another great depression and mega drought like the Dust Bowl era then expect mass genocide and a new world order.
The other day I told my adopted brother the difference between now and the dust bowl era is that we are not in a drought, but if this happens I will eat my crow...
There are some significant differences between then and now that might effect things. Part of the dustbowl's impact was due to bad farming practices in an area never meant for that kind of agriculture. Wheat speculation combined with false land advertising and an unusually wet few years drove thousands of people out to tear up the plains and plant. When the normal droughts came back, they were devastated and desperately plowed up more and more buffalo grass to plant more wheat in an attempt to get back some of their money. Prior to this, the area has been grazing for buffalo and cattle, the tough grasses had deep interwoven root systems that held the soil down. It's never fully recovered but farming practices have changed.
Climate Change means warmer and wetter ... more rain more widely distributed ...
I think that's a very simplistic view of climate. It means different things in different parts of the world.
The Facts About Climate Change and Drought
What’s the link between climate change and drought? Find out the key facts in this post.www.climaterealityproject.org
From your link: "That’s because as more greenhouse gas emissions are released into the air, causing air temperatures to increase, more moisture evaporates from land and lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water. Warmer temperatures also increase evaporation in plant soils, which affects plant life and can reduce rainfall even more."
Physics says more evaporation means more rainfall ... the air absorbs more water vapor over the oceans to be precipitated over land ... temperature has less to do with this process as pressure does ...
The area in the OP's article is taking about is along the edge of one of the world's desert belts ... this is a very specific climate in that the prevailing winds are downward ... the opposite of what we need for rain ... thus it's dry under the current climate ... as demonstrated by the megadroughts every few thousand years ...
Ya, that must be why the Colorado snow pack has been well above average 4 out of the last 7 years with 2 of those years being records. And lake Powell is up over 30'.
Quit listening to clowns who can't get money for research if they don't predict doom and gloom. Just like Kung Flu projections, shit in, shit out.
And don't forget Flaming Gorge has to draw down every year in the last decade to make room for run off and is doing it again this year.
states-snowpack-still-below-average-despite-wet-march
While California's snowpack in March was in better condition than it was in February, the month's precipitation was not enough to offset the state's dry winter, according to the California Department of Water Resources.
A survey DWR officials conducted in the Sierra Nevada on Wednesday measured snow depth at 43.5 inches, with 16.5 inches of water contained in the snowpack.
The measurement is two-thirds of the April average at the Phillips Station survey site. Statewide snow level sensors also showed that the snowpack's water level was down 53% from April averages.
Current Situation and Impacts in the WestSnow Drought
Snowpack typically acts as a natural reservoir, providing water throughout the drier summer months. Lack of snowpack storage, or a shift in timing of snowmelt from that reservoir, can be a challenge for drought planning. Snow drought is a period of abnormally little snowpack for the time of...
April 2, 2020
After an extremely dry February, particularly in CA and NV where many locations were record dry, active weather returned during March. Stormy weather has led to above normal precipitation over the past 30 days for much of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. Despite the wet weather, snow water equivalent (SWE) averaged over large river basins (HUC 6) in south-central Arizona and New Mexico saw the greatest percent of average declines over the past month in the West. The Salt River basin in Arizona and the Upper Gila river basin that straddles the Arizona-New Mexico border are both currently at 29% of normal SWE. This is partially due to warmer temperatures with recent storms and rain in the mountains driving warm snow drought conditions. These lower latitude locations also reach peak snowpack earlier in the season and late March is already the melt season.
In contrast to the active weather in the Southwest, the majority of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon were drier than normal for March. Cooler than normal temperatures, however, helped to preserve the snowpack already in the Pacific Northwest mountains with gains in SWE during the storms that did move into the region. The exceptions are the eastern slopes of the central and northern Cascades in Washington, the Okanogan basin of Washington (SWE ranges from 55 to 75% of normal), and south-central Idaho, specifically the Sawtooth Mountains (with a cluster of stations below the 20th percentile). In southwest Oregon, the snowpack entered March well below average, but benefitted somewhat from recent storms, increasing to 79% of normal in the Klamath basin. The relative lack of snow in this region has contributed to developing moderate-to-extreme drought conditions in Klamath, Jackson, and Josephine counties. A drought declaration in Klamath county was approved in late February in significant part due to the water supply issues caused by the lean snow year.
Last year there was so damn much snow in the Sierras the PCT hikers had to wait an extra month in Kennedy Mesdows before heading in and it refilled most of the lakes to the brim. That's why I showed you the averages. One year doesn't make a crisis. Quit believing agenda driven crap when the real evidence is sitting in mountain lakes.
I think that's a very simplistic view of changing precipitation patterns.
But the biggest driver of those decade-long droughts, reports Steiger, is La Niña, an environmental phenomenon that includes cooling temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. La Niña events occur on a multi-year cycle, alternating with the more familiar El Niño events that warm ocean waters and can ravage coral reef systems in the tropics.“La Niñas are twice as important” as warming in the Atlantic and radiative forcing, Steiger says.Unusually cold and frequent La Niñas shift where storm systems travel, inducing drought or very wet conditions in localized areas. La Niñas in North America generally push storms north, explained Steiger, toward states in the Pacific Northwest. That means the Southwest receives less rain.
So, what the OP article alleges is an increasing severity of mega-droughts, sparked by La Niña events - compounded by higher evaporation in the South-West due to climate change and the ensuing higher temperatures - pushing precipitation northward.
I think that's a very simplistic view of changing precipitation patterns.
But the biggest driver of those decade-long droughts, reports Steiger, is La Niña, an environmental phenomenon that includes cooling temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. La Niña events occur on a multi-year cycle, alternating with the more familiar El Niño events that warm ocean waters and can ravage coral reef systems in the tropics.“La Niñas are twice as important” as warming in the Atlantic and radiative forcing, Steiger says.Unusually cold and frequent La Niñas shift where storm systems travel, inducing drought or very wet conditions in localized areas. La Niñas in North America generally push storms north, explained Steiger, toward states in the Pacific Northwest. That means the Southwest receives less rain.
So, what the OP article alleges is an increasing severity of mega-droughts, sparked by La Niña events - compounded by higher evaporation in the South-West due to climate change and the ensuing higher temperatures - pushing precipitation northward.
La Nina changes year-to-year ... and is considered a dynamic element of the system ... just looking at the past fifty years there doesn't seem to be any correlation between temperatures and the ENSO ... and it is an oscillation, a thing we try to "average out" for our climate discussions ...
I don't see how a seasonal ocean anomaly would cause a ten year drought ... I understand that the temperate storms generally tracks further North during La Nina years, but then the track returns to more average the following year breaking any drought ... not ten years later, but the very next year ... I noticed that the two most recent bad droughts in California line up quite well with a persistent, although mild, El Nino cycle
We have a different dynamic situation that causes these megadroughts, something that keeps high pressure over the region for decades at a time ... I don't know what that could be, but obviously it did happen ... we do need to keep in mind the proximity of the desert belt, places where it's normally dry anyway ...
When I think of the Dust Bowl, I think of two things:I wonder if we are in for another dust bowl, combined with economic collapse. This is also includes areas that have seen a big increase in population.
'Megadrought' emerging in the western US might be worse than any in 1,200 years
Fueled in part by human-caused climate change, a “megadrought” appears to be emerging in the western U.S., a study published Thursday suggests.
In fact, the nearly-20-year drought is almost as bad or worse than any in the past 1,200 years, scientists say.
Megadroughts – defined as intense droughts that last for decades or longer – once plagued the Desert Southwest. Thanks to global warming, an especially fierce one appears to be coming back:
"We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we're on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts," said study lead author A. Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University, in a statement. This is “a drought bigger than what modern society has seen."
Scientists say that about half of this historic drought can be blamed on man-made global warming. Some of the impacts today include shrinking reservoirs and worsening wildfire seasons.
Megadroughts could return to southwestern U.S.
Severe droughts parched western North America hundreds of years ago. They may return, thanks to climate change.
Described in a comprehensive new study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, scientists now understand the causes of the megadroughts common during the medieval period. With climate change, they predict more megadroughts in the future.
"What’s new here is they are really putting the pieces together in a way that hasn’t been done before,” says Connie Woodhouse, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who was uninvolved with the study.
A string of decade-long droughts occurred in the American Southwest during the medieval period, between 800 and 1600 CE. The researchers tied together previously existing theories about megadroughts to discover three main drivers.
Lead author Nathan Steiger, a climate scientist at Columbia University, says that the study was “exciting scientifically, but [the] consequences are not good” for a warming future.
Their analysis pinpoints three main factors causing megadroughts in the American Southwest: Cooling water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, warming water in the Atlantic Ocean, and something called radiative forcing. A novel part of this study, Steiger says, was “showing that radiative forcing is important too for causing these megadroughts.”
Megadroughts are a naturally occurring process but what the article is saying is climate change may further complicate and worsen them.
When I think of the Dust Bowl, I think of two things:I wonder if we are in for another dust bowl, combined with economic collapse. This is also includes areas that have seen a big increase in population.
'Megadrought' emerging in the western US might be worse than any in 1,200 years
Fueled in part by human-caused climate change, a “megadrought” appears to be emerging in the western U.S., a study published Thursday suggests.
In fact, the nearly-20-year drought is almost as bad or worse than any in the past 1,200 years, scientists say.
Megadroughts – defined as intense droughts that last for decades or longer – once plagued the Desert Southwest. Thanks to global warming, an especially fierce one appears to be coming back:
"We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we're on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts," said study lead author A. Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University, in a statement. This is “a drought bigger than what modern society has seen."
Scientists say that about half of this historic drought can be blamed on man-made global warming. Some of the impacts today include shrinking reservoirs and worsening wildfire seasons.
Megadroughts could return to southwestern U.S.
Severe droughts parched western North America hundreds of years ago. They may return, thanks to climate change.
Described in a comprehensive new study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, scientists now understand the causes of the megadroughts common during the medieval period. With climate change, they predict more megadroughts in the future.
"What’s new here is they are really putting the pieces together in a way that hasn’t been done before,” says Connie Woodhouse, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who was uninvolved with the study.
A string of decade-long droughts occurred in the American Southwest during the medieval period, between 800 and 1600 CE. The researchers tied together previously existing theories about megadroughts to discover three main drivers.
Lead author Nathan Steiger, a climate scientist at Columbia University, says that the study was “exciting scientifically, but [the] consequences are not good” for a warming future.
Their analysis pinpoints three main factors causing megadroughts in the American Southwest: Cooling water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, warming water in the Atlantic Ocean, and something called radiative forcing. A novel part of this study, Steiger says, was “showing that radiative forcing is important too for causing these megadroughts.”
1- The Grapes of Wrath, and
2- That magical happening in 1935 when Congress was listening to testimony about soil erosion (in hopes of getting more aid from Congress) and .... a dust storm hit RIGHT THEN.
In March 1935 a dust storm hit Washington, DC, caused by soil erosion in the midwest in what came to be called the Dust Bowl. Washington had already experienced at least one dust storm, in May the previous year, but this storm had special timing. It hit on the day Hugh Bennett, Director of the Soil Erosion Service, testified before Congress for the need to continue funding the program, which worked to stop the erosion causing the dust storms. Washingtonians saw firsthand the impact of soil erosion as dust covered the Mall and city and Congress approved changes.
I've never understood why people chose to farm in desert areas of California, needing massive irrigation efforts to sustain it. At the very least, they should stop producing high water content crops like lettuce. We can do hydroponics now.I wonder if we are in for another dust bowl, combined with economic collapse. This is also includes areas that have seen a big increase in population.
'Megadrought' emerging in the western US might be worse than any in 1,200 years
Fueled in part by human-caused climate change, a “megadrought” appears to be emerging in the western U.S., a study published Thursday suggests.
In fact, the nearly-20-year drought is almost as bad or worse than any in the past 1,200 years, scientists say.
Megadroughts – defined as intense droughts that last for decades or longer – once plagued the Desert Southwest. Thanks to global warming, an especially fierce one appears to be coming back:
"We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we're on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts," said study lead author A. Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University, in a statement. This is “a drought bigger than what modern society has seen."
Scientists say that about half of this historic drought can be blamed on man-made global warming. Some of the impacts today include shrinking reservoirs and worsening wildfire seasons.
Megadroughts could return to southwestern U.S.
Severe droughts parched western North America hundreds of years ago. They may return, thanks to climate change.
Described in a comprehensive new study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, scientists now understand the causes of the megadroughts common during the medieval period. With climate change, they predict more megadroughts in the future.
"What’s new here is they are really putting the pieces together in a way that hasn’t been done before,” says Connie Woodhouse, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who was uninvolved with the study.
A string of decade-long droughts occurred in the American Southwest during the medieval period, between 800 and 1600 CE. The researchers tied together previously existing theories about megadroughts to discover three main drivers.
Lead author Nathan Steiger, a climate scientist at Columbia University, says that the study was “exciting scientifically, but [the] consequences are not good” for a warming future.
Their analysis pinpoints three main factors causing megadroughts in the American Southwest: Cooling water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, warming water in the Atlantic Ocean, and something called radiative forcing. A novel part of this study, Steiger says, was “showing that radiative forcing is important too for causing these megadroughts.”
If we have another great depression and mega drought like the Dust Bowl era then expect mass genocide and a new world order.
The other day I told my adopted brother the difference between now and the dust bowl era is that we are not in a drought, but if this happens I will eat my crow...
There are some significant differences between then and now that might effect things. Part of the dustbowl's impact was due to bad farming practices in an area never meant for that kind of agriculture. Wheat speculation combined with false land advertising and an unusually wet few years drove thousands of people out to tear up the plains and plant. When the normal droughts came back, they were devastated and desperately plowed up more and more buffalo grass to plant more wheat in an attempt to get back some of their money. Prior to this, the area has been grazing for buffalo and cattle, the tough grasses had deep interwoven root systems that held the soil down. It's never fully recovered but farming practices have changed.
True and rotating and letting a land sit a year or two is practice more today and also most people do not farm and farming is more of a corporate thing in today time..
Sure, we have independent farmers still but very few compared to the corporate farms...
Personally if I were healthy I might farm this next few years seeing it will be profitable as can be...
As for the drought, let hope for the best and why hasn't California ever change the water system?
Megadroughts are a naturally occurring process but what the article is saying is climate change may further complicate and worsen them.
"May" is right ... or it "may" ease conditions ... we won't know for sure for another 1,200 years ...
A far bigger problem in that region is so many people moving there and using more water ... what will take look like in 1,200 years? ...
I've never understood why people chose to farm in desert areas of California, needing massive irrigation efforts to sustain it. At the very least, they should stop producing high water content crops like lettuce. We can do hydroponics now.
Is that why California is even getting water from the other western states, and dumping all that fresh water into the ocean (possibly to keep the fish from getting thirsty)???
California Dumps a Trillion Gallon of Fresh Water in Ocean – Declares Water Shortage
California continues to dump trillions of gallons of fresh water in the ocean. It’s been raining cats and dogs in the LA basin and warnings of dams breaking from the pressure of so much water have …telephoneengineerwarrington.wordpress.com
I don't know much about it. Just know there isn't always enough water to go around out there.I've never understood why people chose to farm in desert areas of California, needing massive irrigation efforts to sustain it. At the very least, they should stop producing high water content crops like lettuce. We can do hydroponics now.
By this I'm guessing you mean the Imperial Valley ... crops can be grown there year-round without running oil-burning furnaces ...
The massive irrigation system is up in the Central Valley ... a huge area of very fertile farm area ... the problem is it doesn't rain in summer, although the rivers are full and flowing hard ... the production is worth the expense ... just about everything grows really well there ...
La Nina changes year-to-year ... and is considered a dynamic element of the system ... just looking at the past fifty years there doesn't seem to be any correlation between temperatures and the ENSO ... and it is an oscillation, a thing we try to "average out" for our climate discussions ...
I don't see how a seasonal ocean anomaly would cause a ten year drought ... I understand that the temperate storms generally tracks further North during La Nina years, but then the track returns to more average the following year breaking any drought ... not ten years later, but the very next year ... I noticed that the two most recent bad droughts in California line up quite well with a persistent, although mild, El Nino cycle
We have a different dynamic situation that causes these megadroughts, something that keeps high pressure over the region for decades at a time ... I don't know what that could be, but obviously it did happen ... we do need to keep in mind the proximity of the desert belt, places where it's normally dry anyway ...
La Nina changes year-to-year ... and is considered a dynamic element of the system ... just looking at the past fifty years there doesn't seem to be any correlation between temperatures and the ENSO ... and it is an oscillation, a thing we try to "average out" for our climate discussions ...
I don't see how a seasonal ocean anomaly would cause a ten year drought ... I understand that the temperate storms generally tracks further North during La Nina years, but then the track returns to more average the following year breaking any drought ... not ten years later, but the very next year ... I noticed that the two most recent bad droughts in California line up quite well with a persistent, although mild, El Nino cycle
We have a different dynamic situation that causes these megadroughts, something that keeps high pressure over the region for decades at a time ... I don't know what that could be, but obviously it did happen ... we do need to keep in mind the proximity of the desert belt, places where it's normally dry anyway ...
La Niña might be so long and severe as to result in a depletion of water reserves in the arid South-West that cannot be filled during subsequent years. A quick succession of La Niñas might compound the problem, like, every other year rather than every three or four years. Sum it up, that's a mega-drought.
Now, put higher temperatures and increased evaporation on top of that, water levels dropping even farther. That's why normal droughts become more severe, and mega-droughts more frequent and more devastating.
I've never understood why people chose to farm in desert areas of California, needing massive irrigation efforts to sustain it. At the very least, they should stop producing high water content crops like lettuce. We can do hydroponics now.I wonder if we are in for another dust bowl, combined with economic collapse. This is also includes areas that have seen a big increase in population.
'Megadrought' emerging in the western US might be worse than any in 1,200 years
Fueled in part by human-caused climate change, a “megadrought” appears to be emerging in the western U.S., a study published Thursday suggests.
In fact, the nearly-20-year drought is almost as bad or worse than any in the past 1,200 years, scientists say.
Megadroughts – defined as intense droughts that last for decades or longer – once plagued the Desert Southwest. Thanks to global warming, an especially fierce one appears to be coming back:
"We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we're on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts," said study lead author A. Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University, in a statement. This is “a drought bigger than what modern society has seen."
Scientists say that about half of this historic drought can be blamed on man-made global warming. Some of the impacts today include shrinking reservoirs and worsening wildfire seasons.
Megadroughts could return to southwestern U.S.
Severe droughts parched western North America hundreds of years ago. They may return, thanks to climate change.
Described in a comprehensive new study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, scientists now understand the causes of the megadroughts common during the medieval period. With climate change, they predict more megadroughts in the future.
"What’s new here is they are really putting the pieces together in a way that hasn’t been done before,” says Connie Woodhouse, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who was uninvolved with the study.
A string of decade-long droughts occurred in the American Southwest during the medieval period, between 800 and 1600 CE. The researchers tied together previously existing theories about megadroughts to discover three main drivers.
Lead author Nathan Steiger, a climate scientist at Columbia University, says that the study was “exciting scientifically, but [the] consequences are not good” for a warming future.
Their analysis pinpoints three main factors causing megadroughts in the American Southwest: Cooling water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, warming water in the Atlantic Ocean, and something called radiative forcing. A novel part of this study, Steiger says, was “showing that radiative forcing is important too for causing these megadroughts.”
If we have another great depression and mega drought like the Dust Bowl era then expect mass genocide and a new world order.
The other day I told my adopted brother the difference between now and the dust bowl era is that we are not in a drought, but if this happens I will eat my crow...
There are some significant differences between then and now that might effect things. Part of the dustbowl's impact was due to bad farming practices in an area never meant for that kind of agriculture. Wheat speculation combined with false land advertising and an unusually wet few years drove thousands of people out to tear up the plains and plant. When the normal droughts came back, they were devastated and desperately plowed up more and more buffalo grass to plant more wheat in an attempt to get back some of their money. Prior to this, the area has been grazing for buffalo and cattle, the tough grasses had deep interwoven root systems that held the soil down. It's never fully recovered but farming practices have changed.
True and rotating and letting a land sit a year or two is practice more today and also most people do not farm and farming is more of a corporate thing in today time..
Sure, we have independent farmers still but very few compared to the corporate farms...
Personally if I were healthy I might farm this next few years seeing it will be profitable as can be...
As for the drought, let hope for the best and why hasn't California ever change the water system?
It isn't an opinion piece.
