Climate change is literally baking the water supply and forests of the Southwest.
95% of the western U.S. is experiencing drought conditions.
Researchers calculated the intensity of past droughts by analyzing tree ring patterns.
The intense dry spell that’s parched the western U.S. the past 22 years is the region’s worst “megadrought” since at least the year 800, a new study released Monday said.
Megadroughts, which are defined as intense droughts that last for decades or longer, once plagued western North America. Now, thanks in part to global warming, an especially fierce one is back.
The study, published Monday in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature Climate Change, said that over 40% of the current drought can be blamed on human-caused climate change.
“Climate change is changing the baseline conditions toward a drier, gradually drier state in the West and that means the worst-case scenario keeps getting worse,” said study lead author Park Williams, a climate hydrologist at UCLA. “This is right in line with what people were thinking of in the 1900s as a worst-case scenario. But today I think we need to be even preparing for conditions in the future that are far worse than this.”
Climate change from the burning of fossil fuels is bringing hotter temperatures and increasing evaporation in the air, scientists say.
Thanks to the region’s high temperatures and low rain and snow levels from summer 2020 through summer 2021, the current drought has exceeded the severity of a late-1500s megadrought that previously had been identified as the driest such drought in the 1,200 years that the scientists studied.
The researchers calculated the intensity of past droughts by analyzing tree ring patterns, which provide insights about soil moisture levels each year over long timespans.
As of Feb. 10, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 95% of the western U.S. was experiencing drought conditions. And in summer 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, two of the largest reservoirs in North America – Lake Mead and Lake Powell, both on the Colorado River – reached their lowest recorded levels.
The study “is an important wake-up call,” said Jonathan Overpeck, dean of environment at the University of Michigan, who wasn’t part of the study. “Climate change is literally baking the water supply and forests of the Southwest, and it could get a whole lot worse if we don’t halt climate change soon.”
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That decision failed to pay off, however, with the Red Devils sacking Moyes after just 10 months in charge.
After the current West Ham boss came Van Gaal, who arrived with big things expected due to his past success at the likes of Barcelona and Ajax.
Giggs was hoping to get the Red Devils job himself, which was why he stayed, but both ended up leaving nearly six years ago.
When Jose Mourinho took over, he opted to maintain his close relationship with Rui Faria – who had previously worked under him at clubs such as Real Madrid and Chelsea.
Fair departed in the summer of 2018, though, with Michael Carrick then given a place on Mourinho’s bench.
Carrick stayed to work under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, with the Norwegian also regularly picking up the thoughts of Phelan and Kieran McKenna throughout his spell in the dugout.
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