The Western Drought Worst in 12 Centuries

[Andie]

This would correspond with the collapse of the Aztec civilization in Central America in ~800 CE. 

They believe this will go on another 25 years.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/climate/western-drought-megadrought.html

"The mega drought in the American Southwest has become so severe that it’s now the driest two decades in the region in at least 1,200 years, scientists said Monday, and climate change is largely responsible.

The drought, which began in 2000 and has reduced water supplies, devastated farmers and ranchers and helped fuel wildfires across the region, had previously been considered the worst in 500 years, according to the researchers."

...........

Tree rings are a year-by-year measure of growth — wider in wet years, thinner in dry ones. Using observational climate data over the last century, researchers have been able to closely link tree ring width to moisture content in the soil, which is a common measure of drought. Then they have applied that width-moisture relationship to data from much older trees. The result “is an almost perfect record of soil moisture” over 12 centuries in the Southwest, Dr. Williams said.

Using that record, the researchers determined that last summer was the second driest in the last 300 years, with only 2002, in the early years of the current drought, being drier.

[Anti Marine Layer]

Things are not looking promising.

[Dan the Weatherman]

On 2/17/2022 at 11:35 AM, Andie said:

This would correspond with the collapse of the Aztec civilization in Central America in ~800 CE. 

They believe this will go on another 25 years.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/climate/western-drought-megadrought.html

"The mega drought in the American Southwest has become so severe that it’s now the driest two decades in the region in at least 1,200 years, scientists said Monday, and climate change is largely responsible.

The drought, which began in 2000 and has reduced water supplies, devastated farmers and ranchers and helped fuel wildfires across the region, had previously been considered the worst in 500 years, according to the researchers."

...........

Tree rings are a year-by-year measure of growth — wider in wet years, thinner in dry ones. Using observational climate data over the last century, researchers have been able to closely link tree ring width to moisture content in the soil, which is a common measure of drought. Then they have applied that width-moisture relationship to data from much older trees. The result “is an almost perfect record of soil moisture” over 12 centuries in the Southwest, Dr. Williams said.

Using that record, the researchers determined that last summer was the second driest in the last 300 years, with only 2002, in the early years of the current drought, being drier.

I find it hard to believe that this last summer was the second driest in the last 300 years. A good deal of monsoon rainfall fell in Arizona last summer, and I even think Tucson even broke a record for the wettest July or August. One recent summer was extremely dry in which the monsoon was a failure, but that was either 2020 or 2019.

[snow_wizard]

A big takeaway form this is it was at least this dry 1,200 years ago, before man could have possibly had any effect on climate.  As I've said...climate change is a constant and has been for millions of years.

[TT-SEA]

5 hours ago, Eujunga said:

And cigarettes don't cause lung cancer.

After all, people got lung cancer well before cigarettes were invented, so obviously there can be no causal connection.

Probably not a real good example... I guess lung cancer was exceedingly rare before cigarettes were invented. 

https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/21/2/87

 

[GHweatherChris]

On 3/9/2022 at 4:39 PM, snow_wizard said:

A big takeaway form this is it was at least this dry 1,200 years ago, before man could have possibly had any effect on climate.  As I've said...climate change is a constant and has been for millions of years.

It is cyclical.

[TT-SEA]

36 minutes ago, GHweatherChris said:

It is cyclical.

I posted this before... but most of the last 500 million years has been much warmer than it is now.    Warmth won't hurt the Earth and climate change is definitely a constant.     

[GHweatherChris]

1 hour ago, TT-SEA said:

I posted this before... but most of the last 500 million years has been much warmer than it is now.    Warmth won't hurt the Earth and climate change is definitely a constant.     

It's cyclical overall.  Noone knows how things were 500 million years ago, noone.

[TT-SEA]

1 hour ago, GHweatherChris said:

It's cyclical overall.  Noone knows how things were 500 million years ago, noone.

Well... palm tree and crocodile fossils in the arctic are pretty telling.   Science can tell us some things.