Climate disaster not seen in USA for 1,200 years: Mega drought

Temperature increases, fires and water wars…

Nearly forty years later, a heat wave hit the United States from California to Colorado, TRT Haber reports.  

Over the past two decades, extreme heat and declining humidity levels have created a "mega-drought" in what is considered the driest period in 1,200 years.

Mead and Lake Powell saw record low water levels. Prolonged heatwaves make cities like Phoenix, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada virtually uninhabitable in summer. Forest fires began to appear throughout the year, as forests and meadows were ready to burn more than ever due to the hot weather.

A recent analysis by The Washington Post found that in some areas in the southwestern part of the country, average annual temperatures are rising by more than 1.5C. This was a threshold considered to be a breaking point, with devastating consequences for humans and the environment.

The extreme conditions serve as a warning of what awaits other arid regions crossing this line.

“We have received an excellent warning from climate scientists, but our political and economic systems are coming together to do nothing rather than muster the will to do something about it,” said journalist Bill McKibben, a climate activist.

Experts investigating the current mega-drought analyzed tree rings. Looking at the relationship between tree rings and soil moisture, the researchers realized that the current drought period, which began in 2000, was unprecedented since 800 AD. The 2022 study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, attributed 42 percent of the heat and drought conditions of the last two decades to global warming.

Tim Kohler, an archaeologist and professor at Washington State University, says the current mega-drought is different from prehistoric dry periods.

“This seems to be more severe and just as long as previous droughts, but the really bad news is that all previous mega-droughts have occurred without the impact of increased greenhouse gases.”

A report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released last February detailed how wildfires that destroyed ponderosa pine forests in the southwest were fueling a dangerous cycle.

Camille Parmesan, an ecologist contributing to the report, explained that some forests can actually become greenhouse gas producers when they burn, causing further warming as a result.

The western slope of the Rocky Mountains, which feeds Lake Powell and Lake Mead, experiences less snowfall and higher temperatures. Dust storms in Utah, on the other hand, became larger and more frequent as the soil dried. What's going on is making the drought worse.

Large wildfires broke out in northern Arizona and northern New Mexico last spring and summer. A snowfall famine led to drought and a parched forest floor. Combined with record temperature, low humidity and strong winds. Forest fires increased.

As the West suffers the worst drought in its modern history, there are lessons to be learned from the past.

Kohler has spent more than three decades studying prehistoric Puebloan civilizations in the southwest and knows what the stress of a mega-drought can do to a community.

He says large Puebloan societies were "torn apart" during intense mega-droughts that lasted 20 to 40 years. Kohler says it's only socially polarized communities that have collapsed during the climate crisis. "I think some people in these villages have more wealth or corn production than others," said Kohler.“Pre-existing social divisions revealed the potential for violence during a climatic decline and village life plunged into chaos,” he said.

The echoes of today's resource wars have begun. There is disagreement over how Western state leaders will reduce water use as resources dwindle.

Any chance we have of limiting the rise in global temperature depends on our acting extremely fast. While new studies continue to bring bad news, there is still hope.