200 Years Of Scorchitude: Professor Warns California To Brace For A “Mega-Drought”

Zero Hedge

Two years into California’s drought and locals are repeating (mantra-like) “we’ve never seen anything like it.” They are right, of course, since this is the worst period of rainlessness since records began… but if Cal Berkeley professor Lynn Ingram is correct, they ain’t seen nothing yet. The paleoclimatologist fears, if very long-run history repeats, California should brace itself for a mega drought, as National Geographic reports, a drought that could last for 200 years or more.

via National Geographic,

California is experiencing its worst drought since record-keeping began in the mid 19th century, and scientists say this may be just the beginning. B. Lynn Ingram, a paleoclimatologist at the University of California at Berkeley, thinks that California needs to brace itself for a megadrought—one that could last for 200 years or more.

As a paleoclimatologist, Ingram takes the long view, examining tree rings and microorganisms in ocean sediment to identify temperatures and dry periods of the past millennium. Her work suggests that droughts are nothing new to California.…

 

“During the medieval period, there was over a century of drought in the Southwest and California. The past repeats itself,”says Ingram, who is co-author of The West Without Water: What Past Floods, Droughts, and Other Climate Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow. Indeed, Ingram believes the 20th century may have been a wet anomaly.…

 

Unfortunately, she notes, most of the state’s infrastructure was designed and built during the 20th century, when the climate was unusually wet compared to previous centuries. That hasn’t set water management on the right course to deal with long periods of dryness in the future.

 

Given that California is one of the largest agricultural regions in the world, the effects of any drought, never mind one that could last for centuries, are huge. About 80 percent of California’s freshwater supply is used for agriculture. The cost of fruits and vegetables could soar, says Cantu. “There will be cataclysmic impacts.”

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