Unprecedented 21st-Century Drought Risk in the American Southwest and Central Plains •

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

According to a new study, known as the Unprecedented 21st-Century Drought Risk in the American Southwest and Central Plains, because of climate change, Southwestern USA is soon believed to be facing the worst drought in 1,000 years. This is NASA’s most thorough research regarding draught prediction.

The American southwest region, along with other parts of this world are expected to face unprecedented megadroughts, because of the rising carbon emissions and global warming. Ben Cook, a NASA climate scientist explains the seriousness of the situation we’ll soon have to put up with:

“Recent droughts, like the ongoing drought in California and the southwest and historical droughts like the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, these are naturally occurring droughts that typically last several years or sometimes almost a decade. In our projections with climate change, what we’re seeing is that these droughts could last 20, 30, or even 40 years, even exceeding the duration of the long-term, intense megadroughts that characterised the really arid time period known as Medieval climate anomaly.”

The study was published last Thursday in the Science Advances journal, and is based on premises coming from several climate models, one sponsored by NASA being among them. The research undoubtedly found a continuous increase in human-produced greenhouse gas emissions, which will definitely drive up the risk of severe droughts.

So in other words a megadrought is basically a drought that lasts more than three decades. We are currently facing a 12% risk of having a mega-drought. However In case greenhouse gas emissions stop increasing in the mid-21st century, Cook and his colleagues projected the likelihood of a megadrought to over 60%. Also in case greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase along current trajectories throughout the 21st century, there is an 80% probability of a decades-long mega-drought in the Southwest and Central Plains between 2050 and 2099.

In order to reach this result, researchers applied 17 climate models in order to analyse the future impact of rising temperatures on regions starting from Mexico and going through the United States and Canada.

Moreover they projected a continued rise in emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, and also looked at a scenario in which they took some action so as to cut back on greenhouse gases that resulted in lower emissions. However both approaches are extremely pessimistic.

Here’s the video that explains it all:

Rain Will Be Scarce in the Southwest

Video: US To Face Worst Mega-Droughts Ever

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