U.S. Droughts Will Be the Worst in 1,000 Years - Polidicks

[url]http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-droughts-will-be-the-worst-in-1-000-years1/?WT.mc_id=SA_ENGYSUS_20150219[/url] [QUOTE][B]The Southwest and central Great Plains will dry out even more than previously thought[/B] Several independent studies in recent years have predicted that the American Southwest and central Great Plains will experience extensive droughts in the second half of this century, and that advancing climate change will exacerbate those droughts. But a new analysis released today says the drying will be even more extreme than previously predicted—the worst in nearly 1,000 years.[B] Some time between 2050 and 2100, extended drought conditions in both regions will become more severe than the megadroughts of the 12th and 13th centuries. Tree rings and other evidence indicate that those medieval dry periods exceeded anything seen since, across the land we know today as the continental U.S.[/B] The analysis “shows how exceptional future droughts will be,” says Benjamin Cook, a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and lead author of the study. The work was published online today in the inaugural edition of Science Advances and was released simultaneously at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting here. [B] Cook and his colleagues reached their conclusion by comparing 17 different computer projections of 21st century climate with drought records of the past millennium, notably data in the North American Drought Atlas.[/B] (The atlas is based on extensive tree-ring studies conducted by Cook’s father, Edward, a researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.) T[B]he models consistently demonstrated drought worse than at any time during that epoch, and worse than the current drought out West, which has prevailed for 11 of the previous 14 years[/B], according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. In 2014 the drought cost California more than $2 billion in agricultural loses alone, according to the University of California, Davis. The models also revealed that the drying in the Southwest would result from a combination of less rain and greater soil evaporation due to higher temperatures. They were not as conclusive about less rain in the central Great Plains but all showed more evaporation there. “Even where rain may not change much, greater evaporation will dry out the soils,” Cook says. Drought, of course, means more stress on crops and possibly greater water shortages in urban areas. “[B]We have strategies today to deal with drought—develop more drought-resistant crops, use more groundwater,” Cook says. “But if future droughts will be much more severe, the question is whether we can extend those strategies or if we need new ones.”[/B] Municipal planners and legislators may have a tough challenge, and groundwater is a finite resource. “Our water laws and sharing agreements are very convoluted,” Cook notes. Untangling them in order to make conservation measures practical and equitable "could become a wicked problem.” The next step for Cook’s group will be to try to determine when the transition to severe drought will begin: in the next 20 years, the next 50 years? We’re still uncertain about that,” he says.[/QUOTE]

We'll figure something out by then. We'll find a way.

[QUOTE=ZakkShock;47188743]We'll figure something out by then. We'll find a way.[/QUOTE] Hopefully by then we're able to colonize other planets.

[QUOTE=godfatherk;47188500]oh my god droughts *cough* the blight *cough*[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=ZakkShock;47188743]We'll figure something out by then. We'll find a way.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Whyt546;47188804]Hopefully by then we're able to colonize other planets.[/QUOTE] [thumb]http://www.interstellar-movie.com/images/bg.jpg[/thumb]

I live in Illinois :suicide:

The last time I heard about this like a week or two ago it was just like "chances of" and "possibility", not this certain of it being such a horrible event. It seems slightly sensationalist.

Why do people think we'll be able to colonize other planets by the time we fuck up our own? Stabilizing Earth would be MAGNITUDES easier than making another planet in our solar system habitable, or getting to another solar system (the latter of which is basically impossible with any level of science we currently understand, real or theoretical). If we can't save our own planet, we're fucked, save for divine intervention.

Rush build desalination plants and a good water network.

[QUOTE=Whyt546;47188804]Hopefully by then we're able to colonize other planets.[/QUOTE] So we can, in time, shit all over them as well? No, hopefully, we will figure out how to stop existing like locusts, with culture and society which both rely on perpetual growth.

Colonizing other planets would basically just be living in a little enclosed city on an otherwise uninhabitable wasteland. No matter how bad we fuck up earth, that would be much easier to just do on earth. Unless you're suggesting we'd have terraforming tech, in which case fixing our own planet would be trivial.

or mass ocean filtering will be plausible by then and not as horrible as it is today I'm not that familiar with that stuff but from what I know it's to inconvenient to bother

Yeah I'm pretty sure the US will have to strike up a deal with us Canadians looong before space travel (Or they'll just invade us but good luck with the cold) because of all our fresh water reserves.

So when the Southwest and Central plains turn into a desert, will people finally understand that climate change is a thing?

snip

[QUOTE=JeremyPS;47199380]You won't be in 1000 years...[/QUOTE] 35 years* In 1000 years as this will be the record drought since atleast 1050 AD, The actual drought will be from 2050 - 2100

Joke's on these guys I live in the gulf south and by 2050 my house will be part of the gulf of mexico. HA! ha.

All the more reason not to fuck up the Ogallala Aquifer.

[QUOTE=Lt_C;47200271]Joke's on these guys I live in the gulf south and by 2050 my house will be part of the gulf of mexico. HA! ha.[/QUOTE] Texas is slowly building a wall around the coast to keep that from happening to us. Galveston probably shouldn't exist.

So basically if I'm still in Iowa in 35 years everything is going to be incredibly flat, shitty, and with nothing to do, but really dry?