Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory and a coauthor of the aforementioned study spoke to Smithsonian Magazine about his findings. Notably Smerdon believes that the drought we’re experiencing today would’ve been bad but nowhere near rivaling the “heavyweight droughts” that occurred during the Medieval Era. Unfortunately anthropogenic global warming has made this period of drought incredibly severe — and a rival to those severe droughts of the past. An irrigation pump sits idle on farm land outside of Firebaugh California on February 10 2014 which.
At the time was the driest year on record. Photo Courtesy Ken JamesBloombergGetty Belize WhatsApp Number Images“No matter which way you slice it the clear indication is that the current drought ranks right up there with the worst in more than a thousand years” Smerdon tells Smithsonian Magazine “and there’s a human influence on this of at least 30 percent and possibly as much as 50 percent in terms of its severity.” In Arizona California Colorado Nevada New Mexico and Utah the drought has lasted two decades becoming more of a fact of life than anything else for the folks who live there.
However that doesn’t mean we should continue to be complacent. “The magnitude of future droughts in North America and elsewhere will depend greatly on future rates of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions globally” the study in Science concludes. “The effects of future droughts on humans will be further dependent on sustainable resource use because buffering mechanisms such as ground water and reservoir storage are at risk of being depleted during dry times.” The Megadrought’s Impact on Our PlanetEvidence suggests that the megadroughts drastically changed life for those who lived
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