No water? Get used to it
Think the Southwest’s Drought Is Bad Now? It Could Last A Generation Or More
By Tom Philpott | Wed Sep. 3, 2014 5:55 AM EDT | Mother Jones
Late-summer 2014 has brought uncomfortable news for residents of the US Southwest—and I'm not talking about 109-degree heat in population centers like Phoenix.
A new study by Cornell University, the University of Arizona, and the US Geological Survey researchers, looked at the deep-historical record (tree rings, etc.) and the latest climate change models to estimate the likelihood of major droughts in the Southwest over the next century. The results are as soothing as a thick wool sweater on mid-summer desert hike.
The researchers concluded that odds of a decade-long drought are "at least 80 percent." The chances of a "mega-drought," one lasting 35 or more years, stands at somewhere between 20 percent and 50 percent, depending on how severe climate change turns out to be. And the prospects for an "unprecedented 50-year megadrought"—one "worse than anything seen during the last 2000 years"—checks in at a non-trivial 5 percent to 10 percent.
(Continued here.)
By Tom Philpott | Wed Sep. 3, 2014 5:55 AM EDT | Mother Jones
Late-summer 2014 has brought uncomfortable news for residents of the US Southwest—and I'm not talking about 109-degree heat in population centers like Phoenix.
A new study by Cornell University, the University of Arizona, and the US Geological Survey researchers, looked at the deep-historical record (tree rings, etc.) and the latest climate change models to estimate the likelihood of major droughts in the Southwest over the next century. The results are as soothing as a thick wool sweater on mid-summer desert hike.
The researchers concluded that odds of a decade-long drought are "at least 80 percent." The chances of a "mega-drought," one lasting 35 or more years, stands at somewhere between 20 percent and 50 percent, depending on how severe climate change turns out to be. And the prospects for an "unprecedented 50-year megadrought"—one "worse than anything seen during the last 2000 years"—checks in at a non-trivial 5 percent to 10 percent.
(Continued here.)
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