France 24
France 24 published the following article:
The megadrought that has parched southwestern United States and parts of Mexico over the last two decades is the worst to hit the region in at least 1,200 years, researchers said Monday.
Human-caused global heating accounts for more than 40 percent of the dry spell's intensity, they reported in the journal Nature Climate Change.
"The turn-of-the-21st-century drought would not be on a megadrought trajectory without anthropogenic climate change," lead author Park Williams, an associate professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, and colleagues wrote.
Over the last decade, California and other western states have experienced severe water shortages, triggering periodic restrictions on water usage and forcing some communities to import bottled water for drinking.
Occasional heavy snow or rainfall have not been enough to compensate.
2021 was especially dry. As of February 10, 95 percent of western US had drought conditions, according to the US government's Drought Monitor.
Last summer, two of North America's largest reservoirs -- Lake Mead and Lake Powell -- reached their lowest recorded level in more than a century.
The odds are high that the current dry spell will continue for at least a couple of years, probably longer, according to the findings.
Running simulations based on soil moisture records stretching back 1,200 years, the researchers calculated a 94 percent chance that the drought would extend through 2022.
There's a three-in-four chance it will run until the end of decade.
Tree-ring analysis shows that the area west of the Rocky Mountains from southern Montana to northern Mexico was hit repeatedly by so-called megadroughts -- lasting at least 19 years -- between the years 800 and 1600.
The megadrought that has parched southwestern United States and parts of Mexico over the last two decades is the worst to hit the region in at least 1,200 years, researchers said Monday.
Human-caused global heating accounts for more than 40 percent of the dry spell's intensity, they reported in the journal Nature Climate Change.
"The turn-of-the-21st-century drought would not be on a megadrought trajectory without anthropogenic climate change," lead author Park Williams, an associate professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, and colleagues wrote.
Over the last decade, California and other western states have experienced severe water shortages, triggering periodic restrictions on water usage and forcing some communities to import bottled water for drinking.
Occasional heavy snow or rainfall have not been enough to compensate.
2021 was especially dry. As of February 10, 95 percent of western US had drought conditions, according to the US government's Drought Monitor.
Last summer, two of North America's largest reservoirs -- Lake Mead and Lake Powell -- reached their lowest recorded level in more than a century.
The odds are high that the current dry spell will continue for at least a couple of years, probably longer, according to the findings.
Running simulations based on soil moisture records stretching back 1,200 years, the researchers calculated a 94 percent chance that the drought would extend through 2022.
There's a three-in-four chance it will run until the end of decade.
Tree-ring analysis shows that the area west of the Rocky Mountains from southern Montana to northern Mexico was hit repeatedly by so-called megadroughts -- lasting at least 19 years -- between the years 800 and 1600.
