New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’

From the NoTricksZone

By Kenneth Richard

Another climate-related “crisis” narrative is sapped by observational evidence.

A new study published in a Nature journal finds no acceleration (even a slightly negative acceleration, -0.0003 to -0.00005 yr⁻²) in global-scale drought trends in the modern era of “global warming”.

The zero-acceleration (or slightly declining) trend in global drought appears in Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) observations across 125-year (1900-2024), 75-year (1950-2024), and even the most recent 43-year (1981-2024) records.

Scientists who prefer to advance the narrative that human activity is driving warming, and climate warming accelerates global drought, have historically used negligent statistical methods to “artificially inflate” drying trends six-fold.

Image Source: Wu et al., 2026

A 2022 study that analyzed global annual precipitation trends from 1900 to 2020 also found “no evidence…to show that there has been any increase in precipitation deficits in recent decades that might be attributable to global warming.”

Image Source: O’Connell et al., 2022

The climate data they don't want you to find — free, to your inbox.
Join readers who get 5–8 new articles daily — no algorithms, no shadow bans.
5 3 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
5 Comments
Nick Stokes
September 18, 2026 6:13 pm

Another climate-related “crisis” narrative is sapped by observational evidence.”

Whose narrative? This is a straw man. There is no expectation of global drought. There can’t be, because evaporation from the sea will increase.

There is an expectation that the rain may fall in different places, but looking at global totals won’t illuminate that.

Nick Stokes
Reply to  Jim Gorman
September 18, 2026 8:06 pm

That says nothing about a global drought. It says rain may move in such a way that some areas miss out.

leefor
Reply to  Nick Stokes
September 18, 2026 9:03 pm

Missed this? “the majority of scientists have started to link more intense droughts to climate change”

“And it’s not surprising – droughts have been drier and lasting longer in recent years thanks in part to climate change”

https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/facts-about-climate-change-and-drought

The underlying paper.

Nick Stokes
Reply to  leefor
September 18, 2026 9:21 pm

Nothing there about global drought. It talks about some regions being affected.

Australia is an example here. The SW is drying, and it’s bad. It’s due to the expansion of the Hadley cell driving W winds further south. But rain in the North is increasing, because the monsoons are coming further south.

So some places gain, some lose. That won’t show up in a global average.