drought •

Scientists say that the rain will be scarce in the Southwest and existing water should be preserved.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – According to a study that was published this Thursday, the rain will be scarce in the Southwest region of America from now on, and long periods of drought will become common.

Researchers at the Atmospheric Research National Center analyzed data beginning from 1979 and up until 2014. After studying the meteorological phenomenon that took place between these years, they concluded that rain will be scarce in the Southwest.

It seems that the researchers discovered a few patterns belonging to broad storms. These storms were linked to the amounts of precipitations that fell each year in the Southwest region of America. According to their research, three of the broad storms that brought rain in the region have become more and more rare, leading to a drier climate.

A normal year, which means a year in which no extreme meteorological phenomenon occurs, is much drier in the Southwest than it used to be. The lead author of the study declared that droughts will increase in severity because the climate is drier and it doesn’t allow much rainfall.

But such a radical conclusion needs to be based on more than 35 years of meteorological data. Scientists gave the example of California. The sunny state experienced drought periods that were decades long.

According to the data, the state of California experienced almost two centuries of droughts in only 1,200 years. This means that the current situation may not be abnormal, but just a prolonged drought season which seems to be fairly common in this region of the country.

Another scientist claims that the last century and a half was normal from their point of view. He also added that there are examples of drier decades, even centuries in the past that were much worse than the period in which the Southwest is now, temperature wise.

It seems that the period between the middle of the ‘70s and the late ‘90s was actually an abnormally wet one and the population boom that took place in that time (the population of the state almost doubled in numbers) was actually based on a meteorological abnormality that created the water infrastructure that California has today.

Researchers have concluded that rain will be scarce in the Southwest, so they are hoping that their study will allow the official authorities to come up with water conservation and strategic dispersion plans.

Image source: www.geograph.org.uk

The climate has changed over the years causing the drought to be more intense.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – According to the study released by the US Forest Service, American forests are severely affected by drought. Although many people consider that drought only means the lack of water, officials state that the consequences of a drought are more extensive than that.

The US Forest Service released a study in which it underlines the fact that forests are severely affected by drought. The effects are indeed devastating on an economical and sociological level, too. The aims of the report published by the Forest Service was to find a way that could monitor and quantify drought, assess and understand the damage that it inflicts on the forest and on the trees, and identify some potential adaptation strategies to downgrade its effects.

It seems that the increasing warmer temperatures and the drought make some regions of the US extremely dry. This only leads to an increased variation in precipitations. It this vicious cycle continues, the effects that the drought has will only be amplified.

But the drought doesn’t just cause some trees to wither away and die. According to the study published by the Forest Service, the drought can lead to an outbreak of large insect, especially in the Western parts of the US. The phenomenon can also cause large scale forest fires that affect all of the animal population, as well as towns that are in the immediate vicinity of the forests.

An extensive forest fire could destroy the habitat of a wide variety of animals, which could lead to a significant modification in the ecosystem.

Tom Vilsack, the Agriculture Secretary declared that the rangelands and forests in America are national treasures and they should be treated as such. He focused on the fact that the study reveals that there is no region in the entire country that is not affected by volatile weather conditions or severe effects of the drought.

From an economic point of view, the American forests provide approximately 200,000 jobs to the American people, bring more than $13 million into local economies and provide drinking water for more than sixty million citizens.

According to the study, the number of forest fires has grown exponentially since 2000. The report of the Forest Service, which is composed out of the data provided by 77 researchers, will aid land managers to find better solutions in the improvement of efforts against drought resilience.

The American Forests are severely affected by drought and the Forest Service is trying to encourage land managers to do everything they can to lessen the terrible effects of the phenomenon.

Image source: www.pixabay.com

Rain Will Be Scarce in the Southwest

Forests Are Severely Affected by Drought

Categories