AREAS OF SOUTHWESTERN NORTH AMERICA AFFECTED BY DROUGHT IN THE EARLY 2000S; DARKER COLORS ARE MORE INTENSE. YELLOW BOX SHOWS THE STUDY AREA.
CREDIT: ADAPTED FROM WILLIAMS ET AL., SCIENCE, 2020
With the western United States and northern Mexico suffering an ever-lengthening string of dry years starting in 2000, scientists have been warning for some time that climate change may be pushing the region toward an extreme long-term drought worse than any in recorded history. A new study says the time has arrived: a megadrought as bad or worse than anything even from known prehistory is very likely in progress, and warming climate is playing a key role. The study, based on modern weather observations, 1,200 years of tree-ring data and dozens of climate models, appears this week in the leading journal Science.
“Earlier studies were largely model projections of the future,” said lead author Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “We’re no longer looking at projections, but at where we are now. We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring […]
Yes, Climate Change is still the most devastating thing on the planet, even more important than the Corona Virus, which I believe will be solved eventually, but Climate Change is a more severe threat to the world, for which we have yet to find a solution.