"About 90 years ago, American farmers in the Great Plains had so ravaged the thin soil there that a series of droughts turned the region into a vast expanse of dust, which formed monstrous storms and polluted the skies in cities hundreds of miles away. Around that same time, many places in the U.S. suffered from the most extreme heat waves in the country's history, setting temperature records that stand today."
"This time, it appears to be due to the heating of the planet by greenhouse gases, meaning these changes will be essentially permanent, unlike conditions 90 years ago. This doesn't mean we're doomed to another Dust Bowl. It does mean we're potentially in for a much drier, hotter future than many of us might expect, one where heat waves will be more extreme and farming and finding fresh water will be more difficult in many parts of the country."
About 90 years ago, land mismanagement and drought turned the Great Plains into the Dust Bowl, and concurrent extreme heat waves amplified the damage through a drought–heat feedback loop. Present-day greenhouse-gas–driven warming is recreating similar conditions across the United States, producing a hotter, drier climate that may be effectively permanent. Average U.S. temperature has increased roughly 3°F over the past 70 years, exceeding global average warming. Relative humidity has fallen about 5.3% since 1995 and average rainfall has decreased roughly 2.7% in recent decades. Reduced moisture and stronger heat–drought interactions raise risks to agriculture, water supplies, and model projections of future warming.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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