Megadroughts Threaten The U.S.

U.S. Threatened by Megadroughts

A new study released February 12, 2015 found that by the end of this century, the Southwest and Central Plains states of the United States could likely face the worst megadrought seen in the last 1,000 years. From studying tree rings, scientists can relate devastating droughts to times in our history where cities were abandoned in the 1100's and 1200's. Now, scientists are using these tree ring records to determine the future drought spells in the U.S. They have determined that before 2100, it is very likely we will be seeing even worse droughts than what have occurred in the past.

Picture source: io9.com

We have seen these droughts progressing, especially in the last few years. And we know of the terrible droughts crippling California and other Southwestern states- these problems are likely to continue to digress. The researchers connect this problem to the greenhouse gas emissions continuing to be leaked into the atmosphere at substantial speed. This increase of temperature would speed the loss of water from the soil, a process called evapotranspiration. According to several groups, 2014 has been the hottest year since the 1850's in global temperature. It is fairly certain this trend will continue with each passing year.

In previous droughts, the planet has usually bounced back after long drought periods to ones of wetter climate, but it seems like this may not be possible at this rate because of greenhouse gases. We may bounce back, but not to what we had.

Source: http://www.livescience.com/49794-megadrought-prediction-southwest-plains.html