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Predicting droughts with greater certainty

Posted by: Maven on June 4, 2009 at 6:48 am

From Science Daily:

Using new data and reconstructions of the “Dust Bowl” drought in America during the 1930s, climatologists at the ETH have shown for the first time a three-dimensional picture of the atmospheric circulation that led to the drought. This will enable climate models to be evaluated and further improved. The scientists hope this work will make it possible to predict future periods of drought more accurately.

In the 1930s, a drought that lasted almost ten years wrought havoc on the Midwest region of North America. The enormous dust storms accompanying it gave the “Dust Bowl” drought its name. This drought had devastating socio-economic consequences for America. John Steinbeck immortalised the tragic story of farmers already impoverished by the economic crisis of the time in his novel “The Grapes of Wrath”. And the legendary “Route 66”, along which the farmers fled towards California, was made famous in part by the Dust Bowl.

Read more from Science Daily by clicking here.

June 4, 2009 · Filed Under Drought, Weather & Snowpack

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