Longer droughts and spotty rainfall are a recipe for water shortage — something already being seen throughout much of the American West.
The time between rainfalls has become longer and the rains occurred more erratically in the western U.S. during the last 50 years. (Joel Biederman / Agricultural Research Service)
(CN) — With climate change, scientists expect the Southwest U.S. to become hotter and drier over the next century. And according to research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on Tuesday, that trend has been well underway for the last half century.
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service and the University of Arizona analyzed daily meteorological observations recorded from 1976 to 2019. Compiled by the Global Historical Climatology Network, the data spanned 337 long-term weather stations distributed across the American West.