You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet: Western States Face Decades-Long Megadroughts

You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet: Western States Face Decades-Long Megadroughts

If fossil fuel emissions continue as usual, droughts lasting as long as 35 years a “near certainty” in parched Western U.S. states

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/10/06/you-aint-seen-nothing-yet-western-states-face-decades-long-megadroughts

By: Nika Knight
Date: 2016-10-06

“Megadroughts” that last for decades are threatening to strike already parched Western U.S. states by the end of the century, a new study finds, with one model predicting that a drought lasting about 35 years may be a “near certainty.”

A megadrought would bring back the devastating dustbowl conditions of the 1930s to California, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado, but would last for a much longer period of time, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

“Using a combination of temperature and precipitation models,” the Guardian reports, “the study predicts a 70 percent chance of a megadrought by the end of the century, should rainfall levels remain the same, with a 90 percent chance of an elongated drought should rainfall decrease, as most climate models forecast.”

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