The study by Cornell University, University of Arizona and U.S. Geological Survey researchers will be published in a forthcoming issue of the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate.
“For the southwestern U.S., I’m not optimistic about avoiding real megadroughts,” said Toby Ault, Cornell assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and lead author of the paper. “As we add greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – and we haven’t put the brakes on stopping this – we are weighting the dice for megadrought conditions.”
As of mid-August, most of California sits in a D4 “exceptional drought,” which is in the most severe category. Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas also loiter between moderate and exceptional drought. Ault says climatologists don’t know whether the severe western and southwestern drought will continue, but he said, “With ongoing climate change, this is a glimpse of things to come. It’s a preview of our future.”
Ault said that the West and Southwest must look for mitigation strategies to cope with looming long-drought scenarios. “This will be worse than anything seen during the last 2,000 years and would pose unprecedented challenges to water resources in the region,” he said.
In computer models, while California, Arizona and New Mexico will likely face drought, the researchers show the chances for drought in parts of Washington, Montana and Idaho may decrease.
Beyond the United States, southern Africa, Australia and the Amazon basin are also vulnerable to the possibility of a megadrought. With increases in temperatures, drought severity will likely worsen, “implying that our results should be viewed as conservative,” the study reports.
“These results help us take the long view of future drought risk in the Southwest – and the picture is not pretty. We hope this opens up new discussions about how to best use and conserve the precious water that we have,” said Julia Cole, UA professor of geosciences and of atmospheric sciences.
The study, “Assessing the Risk of Persistent Drought Using Climate Model Simulations and Paleoclimate Data,” was also co-authored by Julia E. Cole, David M. Meko and Jonathan T. Overpeck of University of Arizona; and Gregory T. Pederson of the U.S. Geological Survey.
The National Science Foundation, National Center for Atmospheric Research, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration funded the research.
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The full paper is available here:
https://cornell.app.box.com/Megadrought/1/2369732445/20394648023/1
Almost time for the Flannery Factor to kick in.
Yup, Texans should be sorting out their drains, buying gumboots and possibly a small inflatable boat if they live on or near a flood plane.
How would anyone notice if these states had a drought? They are dry as a bone in the best of times.
Well, Phoenix averages 8 inches of rain a year, so if it got 2 inches in a year, that would be considered a drought.
One problem with generalizing about a state is that the state could have a wide variety of weather. In Oklahoma, the northwest part of the state could be having blizzard conditions while the southeast is in the 80s with tornado warnings. I think that Texas would have the same issues since it ranges from the panhandle down to the muggy Houston area.
This is the drought map from the OK Mesonet showing the drought status in the south, which includes Oklahoma and Texas. Both states show areas of no drought to D4 level.
http://climate.ok.gov/index.php/climate/map/u.s._drought_monitor_-_south_central_u.s/oklahoma_south-central_u.s
But you see flagging a whole state as being at risk for drought when only a, possibly small, area is really at risk increases the ‘scare’ factor. Painting the whole southwest red is much more impressive than actual regional predictions.
Yes, but those spotty droughts are caused by weather. Cornell is talking climate. :–))
Given that every global warming prognosis uttered turns out to be diametrically wrong, I would say this bodes well for the southwestern US.
I am not sure that the risk of a mega-drought is actually historically much different than what they are saying. Unless they have a clear grasp of the past they know nothing new.
So there is a 50-80 percent chance that all will be normal over the next century.
You beat me to it,
So the IPCC accepted ‘pause’ is not accepted by these researchers? The missing heat i.e. heat that is not in the atmosphere – is actually in the deep ocean; yet from there with some kind of ‘teleconnection (an effect without a known mechanism) this crytpo-heat is causing ‘megadrought’ in the models. They do not appear to agree with each other too well on their excuses for no warming, as their ‘team’ agrees that warming has not happened; yet they continue to churn out forecasts based on warming and declare the last year the hottest year ever! while making excuses for not warming. How can they continue to call it ‘settled science’?
I am with you here sort of. But the claim, is that changing ocean circulation is pushing it down. This is a known part of the ENSO process. That is, we know that the east bound winds during La Nina bring up cool water from the west, and over cloudless skies, the water warms and gets plunged deep on the western Pacific. Warm water can and does go down deep.
That said, this has nothing to do with CO2 causing it. Does this make sense?
Would the authors qualify the 1930’s as a megadrought?
The authors seem to overlook quite a few things. They say:
The IPCC notes the past so why should any megadrought be blamed on any warming? The IPCC says US droughts and mega-droughts during the Holocene are likely to remain a feature west of the Mississippi.
Excellent research. I wonder if any of the peer reviewers bothered to mention this?
No, the ’30s did not last 3 decades.
Due to global warming, scientists say, the chances of the southwestern United States experiencing a decade long drought is at least 50 percent, and the chances of a “megadrought” – one that lasts over 30 years – ranges from 20 to 50 percent over the next century.
————
They also say that, due to global warming, the chances of the southwestern United States NOT experiencing a decade long drought is at least 50 percent, and the chances of a “NON-drought” – one that lasts over 30 years – ranges from 20 to 50 percent over the next century.
REPENT NOW SINNERS!!!
Lovin’ that KoolAid, eh, Toby?
He has to. His grants depend on it.
there is a 100% chance of a 100 year rain in the next 100 years.
Re: see Big Joe B.’s article down one thread. Those East Pac tropical systems can deliver quite a load of water to the SW and West Texas. The pineapple express is almost certain to occur at least once this winter and give So Cal a landslide mud headache.
Thank God they made Massachusetts disappear. With any luck Senators Warren and Markey when down the toilet with it.
Guess it’s time to tell so called AWG-beliving “scientists” that may doesn’t hold scientistic norm – had any one proven beyond doubt that it’s likely that…. then it would be a prognosis one way or an other. Not the same at all and nothing to present as if it would happen. Should, would and could…..
Monkeys may fly out of my…. It’s likely that pigs can fly. 6 of one is half a dozen of another.
Anyway, what a stoopidlee worded paper.
Yes, what a stoopidlee worded paper?
Words on paper, yes.
Words that may change sound Science? No.
Words, words but only words
Not to worry. The dramatic sea level rise the warmists have been forecasting will make things nice and wet in the southwest.
BS baffles brains. Meanwhile here in the real world the weather keeps doing what it always does, changeable.
And if history is a guide, predicting a megadrought is like predicting the sun will rise tomorrow.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/california_drought_timeline.png?w=720
Almost looks like a 1200 year sine wave doesn’t it. Here is hoping it isn’t the start of something real bad like the first half of that graph.
Looks like a random disturbance from a constrained point, to me..
Agreed, but with a fairly high auto regression coefficient.
I see a somewhat sloppy 60~100 year interval.
Current events-based science has its day in the limelight, like the research that dovetailed Al Gores hurricane frequency and intensity predictions. A recession in the economy normally carries a 20-25 percent chance all the time as well.
Leon, you should let the facts get in the way of a good government grant.
And yet no one is shutting down the mega fountains in Harry Reid’s Las Vegas or the golf courses, etc….
In other words, if it continues to approach being as warm as the Medieval Warm Period, the Southwest will see droughts just like the ones they saw during the Medieval Warm Period?
And this is supposed to be something new and unforeseen?
There are four seasons in Southern California:
Windy/hot & dry/fires
Windy/cold/dry
Wet/mudslides (mostly where the fires were)
All of the above in rapid succession
I’m glad I moved to Wyoming. We have winter, still winter, sort of not winter, and then almost winter.
And occasionally we have rain or snow. It is 73 degrees here now at noon, and it rained gently all night. I’m happy in this part of the “Great American Desert.” So, if this is “global warming,” I’m all for it.
So you have 6 months of winter and 6 months of bad skiing? 🙂
I can relate.
California has four seasons, the same as the four classical elements.
Earth, Air, Fire, and Water
I thought California seasons were dry, drier, driest and very wet.
As is typical these “prospective” papers the past is ignored. The records of the Southwest show more precipitation during the Medieval Warm period with drought at an early cooling around 1250 AD.(Paralleling the rise and fall of the Anasazi) The long droughts in the intermountain west since the Medieval warm periods, including a 100 year drought in the 16th century, occurred before the modern warming. Precipitation in the SW is based on a complicated dance between the position of the ITD and monsoons with the PDO and AMO and no “paper” has any validity if this complex dance is not factored into it. The work of Betancourt and McCabe with the Arizona tree ring lab has been totally ignored as has the proxy records of the flow of the Colorado River. Suzanne
I really hate this c r a p……………50%?…..either way they win
That’s not a prediction……that a coin toss
…and someone paid good money for this BS
Um, Please sir, We have a mega drought right now in California. That is actually the normal condition for this desert State.
Please sir, doesn’t “global warming”, aka global Temperature increase, normally bring MORE rain; (see wentz et al) like um, a one deg. C rise in Temperature gives a 7% rise in global evaporation, and a 7% rise in global atmospheric water content, and a 7% rise in global precipitation; aka “rain”, and that last one is very important, for it to match the evaporation, or else we would end up with the oceans “up there”, instead of “down here”.
And more rain is just what you need to cure a mega drought.
So don’t worry about it sir; she’ll be right, it will all come out in the wash. And with more rain, those Death Valley rocks can all get on the move again. By the way, who put all those rocks there in the first place, where did they all come from ??
This is what I wonder every single time I read one of these claims. OK, so all that heat is busy hiding out in the oceans – so they’ve *got* to be evaporating faster (no way around that). Water, as you say, cannot live in the sky so there *must* be more rain. But wait! Maybe there’s less wind so it goes up, but just falls right back down in the same spot. Only when I look for what’s suppose to happen to the wind given global warming I find it’s suppose to get stronger. Now that still leaves the possibility of localized droughts as a wind system gets too strong and starts blowing the water right past some area. But half the continent? That doesn’t make a lot of sense! If the water is coming from the Atlantic then you’d think stronger wind systems would do a *better* job of pushing it over the Rockies. If it’s coming from the Pacific every last system has to be strong enough to push it all the way to the eastern US without *any* system getting strong enough to cause a storm to make landfall without getting to the east.
Maybe there will be a mega drought and maybe there won’t. I don’t know. Furthermore, these researchers don’t know either and actually admit it.
However, what I do know is… there is no established causation between man made CO2 emissions and drought. None, nada, zip.
This is a complete fictional stunt designed to grab attention and attract funding.
If it were used to attract funding to build more dams, it might actually be worthwhile.
After all, the notion of a “drought” is quite vague, so when one is acknowledged it usually simply means that the people in the area are being asked to conserve water, and the most likely reason is that the population has outgrown the supply without anything being done to create more supply.
Since, in the area shown, had major droughts in the 1930’s, 1950’s and 1970’s, i.e. 3 in the last 100 years, how many more is big, bad CO2 going to cause over natural variance?
Depends on how much grant money we can get. We need to outdo the previous study with apocalyptic predictions in order to win grants. Nobody ever gets a grant for a study that shows that “stuff happens”.