© Mark Ralston / AFP
Boat docks sit empty on dry land, as Folsom Lake reservoir near Sacramento stands at only 18 percent capacity, as the severe drought continues in California on September 17, 2015.
The American Southwest has surely seen some drought, but things may turn sour, or should we say 'even drier'? Scientists from Cornell University say there's a high chance that a decades-long 'megadrought' is coming by the end of this century.
The scientists, led by atmospheric researcher Toby Ault, have just published their findings in
Science Advances journal.
It should be noted that 'megadrought' isn't just a scary-sounding word, it is an existing term:
an extreme, bone-dry time that can last for over 35 years.
"In some ways, it's as simple as less rainfall and hotter weather," Ault says as quoted by
Popular Mechanics. "Basically the risk of a megadrought depends critically on the balance of soil moisture at the soil's surface, and that's a tug-of-war between evaporation from hotter weather and the supply of moisture through precipitation."
The study suggests that the production of greenhouse gases, if carried on at the current rate, could cause the megadrought, and the chances are very high, 70 to 99 percent - which makes it "
virtually certain," in the scientists' words.
Comment: Man made global warming didn't cause the megadrought in the 16th century, and it's not going to be the cause of a future one. Any solutions involving that bogus claim are useless. This is not to say that such kinds of megadroughts are not on the way. They very well may be, but the earth changes we are seeing are not so black and white as some pseudo-climate scientists would like them to be.