![sdata20141-f5[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sdata20141-f51.jpg?w=150&resize=150%2C60)
Unless my eyes deceive me, it looks like there is no net change in global drought area for 30 years.
The graph shows the proportion of the planet in drought, by intensity, 1982-2012. The graph comes from a paper in a new Nature publication called Scientific Data and is open access.
![sdata20141-f5[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/sdata20141-f51.jpg?quality=83)
Color scheme: D0 (yellow) = abnormally dry; D1 (orange) = moderate drought, D4 (red) is extreme drought.
h/t to Marc Morano and source: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2014/05/fraction-of-globe-in-drought-1982-2012.html
The open access drought graph paper: http://www.nature.com/articles/sdata20141
Global integrated drought monitoring and prediction system
- Scientific Data (2014) doi:10.1038/sdata.2014.1
Abstract
Drought is by far the most costly natural disaster that can lead to widespread impacts, including water and food crises. Here we present data sets available from the Global integrated drought monitoring and prediction system (GIDMaPS), which provides drought information based on multiple drought indicators. The system provides meteorological and agricultural drought information based on multiple satellite-, and model-based precipitation and soil moisture data sets. GIDMaPS includes a near real-time monitoring component and a seasonal probabilistic prediction module. The data sets include historical drought severity data from the monitoring component, and probabilistic seasonal forecasts from the prediction module. The probabilistic forecasts provide essential information for early warning, taking preventive measures, and planning mitigation strategies. GIDMaPS data sets are a significant extension to current capabilities and data sets for global drought assessment and early warning. The presented data sets would be instrumental in reducing drought impacts especially in developing countries. Our results indicate that GIDMaPS data sets reliably captured several major droughts from across the globe.
We MUST do something to save our deserts from CO2 induced climate change. Future farming will certainly change it’s delicate ecosystem. Enormous rain shades will have to be constructed to preserve desert habitat and wildlife. It would be easier to just stop producing CO2. /sarc off. GK
To SIGINT EX, Jeff L:
Paul Farrell is one of the most obvious Marxists at the
Marketwatch Web site. IMHO, he is only exceeded in
his Marxist tendencies at that site by Rex Nutting, whose
name seems to say it all.
“Drought is by far the most costly natural disaster that can lead to widespread impacts”???
Where is the proof for this statement. Sure agriculture will be affected locally but food for the masses can be imported. Sure the lawn browns when most of the available water is diverted to ag and environmental reasons but I’m pretty sure cold and snow have a much greater deleterious effect on economy/GDP, if “cost” is the basis for the argument. Just look at CNBC and everyone still blames the bad winter for failure of the jobs/housing/retail/restaurants/economy to bounce back from the recession of 5 years ago.
SIGINT EX,
LOL
>>… Environmental economist Bill McKibben wrote in Foreign Policy, it may “already be too late” to stop the impact of our climate change.
McKibben an economist? Really? I thought he wrote the “Talk Of The Town” column for The New Yorker? Economists everywhere should wonder why they had to sweat blood to earn their titles.
Obviously the data in this graph needs some adjusting. Like the temperature record, these data don’t understand the nuance.
That is, the nuance embodied in the HHCMs.
(High Holy Climate Models)
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To my (admittedly) untrained eyes it looks like droughts have been trending down.
Do they have a graph that includes media coverage and Alarmist hype?
I’m sure that’s gone up.
=======================================================================
WOW! Just think how much worse it would be with Man-made Carbon Pollution!
norah4you says:
May 22, 2014 at 10:55 pm
” we only are humans and not God”
Speak for yourself !!
philjourdan says:
May 23, 2014 at 3:52 am
@Mario Lento
Less worse? Sounds like more better. If nothing else, Climate science has given us all sorts of new expressions. 😉
++++++
As soon as I hit send, even though, I was being sardonic, I regretted that my post was imprecise. It just sounded so good to me –and it was the first time I posted first –and the post ended up staying first.
So you’re correct.
PS – I tend to think that a warm climate tends to be more moist, and drought tend to be fewer. The data seems to indicate that correlation. The alarmist crowd who blame drought (and anything else that is not good) on global warming just don’t understand their shrill blathering.
When the true agenda is increasing State power and redistributing wealth, trying to apply logic and rigor to the warmista’s “science” is a waste of valuable energy, and plays into their hands, actually.
No sign that the ‘infamous’ Australian so-called Millenium Drought which started in 2001 and lasted to at least 2006 in most areas was anything out of the ordinary globally (despite the area involved) . Funny, I could have sworn many Australian climate scientists (and professional climate alarmists like Tim Flannery) were saying publicly that it was the worst (= most widespread/intense) drought since 1900 and that it could easily last for decades (which of course it didn’t). The now disbanded Federal Department of the Environment was printing glossy reports to that effect. Of course Flim Flannery has not had the decency to apologize, he’s too busy doing a travelogue series in China for the ABC.
“””””…..brians356 says:
May 23, 2014 at 10:28 am
SIGINT EX,
LOL
>>… Environmental economist Bill McKibben wrote in Foreign Policy, it may “already be too late” to stop the impact of our climate change. …..”””””
Well that is either a tautology; or an oxymoron ; your choice.
It is ALWAYS too late to stop the impact of our climate change.
Impact happens NOW, in the present.
Future impact will happen in the FUTURE and be a consequence of the climate changes between now and then; but by then, it will be too late to stop.
Extra droughty and dry
Is the nervous cough
From those who traffic
In pure bollocks…
When the rain falls not
Or comes in sheets
Either way it’s a crime
To the bleats of sheep…
“My guess is they would say, the droughts are hidden in the deep oceans.”
Explains why sea level rise has decreased while oceans have absorbed so many atomic bombs worth of energy.
Beat Trenberth to the next fantasy.
We see a gradually decreasing total land area that is in drought. The alarmists see that (as a percentage of the total) the drought area that is classified as “Extreme” is increasing.