‘Potentially the worst drought in 1,200 years’: scientists on the scorching US heatwave
Researchers had long forewarned of this crisis and now they’re seeing their studies and models become real life
The paleoclimatologist: ‘Potentially the worst drought in 1,200 years’
Kathleen Johnson, California
Associate professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine
The meteorologist: ‘The ground is burning like a hotplate’
Simon Wang, Utah
Professor of climate dynamics at Utah State University
The climate scientist: ‘The most distressing part? This was predictable’
Daniel Swain, Colorado
Climate scientist, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability,University of California, Los Angeles
John Wesley Powell, the one-armed US army civil war veteran who led the first white expedition down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon – a daring boat run in 1869 – later became an ethnographer who wrote a prescient 1878 government paper titled: Report on the Lands of the Arid Regions of the United States. In it, he unflinchingly described the scarcity of water, and summarized that much of the American south-west, if it must be settled, should be settled lightly and modestly. Overpopulate it, and it will be unforgiving. NOBODY LISTENED TO HIM
They changed everything. Phoenix and Las Vegas grew as if water came from the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where the bluebird sings to the lemonade springs and every day is pay day. Just flip the switch; turn on the tap. Or maybe they grew like invasive weeds, sprouting swimming pools, golf courses and lawns – a greedy developer’s dream. Farmers greened the desert. Cattle grazed the valleys. High voltage lines lit up casinos, stadiums and homes, keeping them warm in winter, cool in summer. It felt almost providential, ordained by God. . .
The drought in US south-west is the worst in 1,200 years. It might be here to stay
Utah’s Governor Spencer Cox has asked his constituents to pray for rain. Unfortunately, that won’t help
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