Western US faces the worst drought in 1,200 years

The drought that has parched southwestern United States and parts of Mexico over the last two decades is the worst to hit the region in at least 1,200 years, according to new research. Occasional heavy snow or rainfall have not been enough to compensate the lack of moisture.

The scientists (and subsequently the media) were quick to point an accusing finger at us, humans. "The turn-of-the-21st-century drought would not be on a megadrought trajectory without anthropogenic climate change," lead author Park Williams, an associate professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, and colleagues wrote.

Over the last decade, California and other western states have experienced severe water shortages, triggering periodic restrictions on water usage and forcing some communities to import bottled water for drinking.

During the summer of 2021, two of North America's largest reservoirs (Lake Mead and Lake Powell) reached their lowest recorded levels ever.

Running simulations based on soil moisture records stretching back 1,200 years, the researchers calculated a 75 percent chance that the drought would extend through the 2030s.

Tree-ring analysis shows that the area west of the Rocky Mountains from southern Montana to northern Mexico was hit repeatedly by so-called megadroughts - lasting at least 19 years - between the years AD 800 and AD 1600.

Earlier research had established that the period 2000-2018 was likely the second worst drought since the year 800, topped by one in the late 1500s. Data from 2019-2021, backed by new climate models released last year, have revealed the current drought to be worse than any from the Middle Ages.

So, we now learn that extreme droughts are nothing new in the southwestern United States. However, the researchers maintain that without climate change it "wouldn't hold a candle to the megadroughts of the 1500s, 1200s or 1100s."

That's not science, but seems more like victim blaming* to me. But we could have guessed that conclusion, because the Journal in which the article was published is called 'Nature Climate Change'.

[1] Williams et al: Rapid intensification of the emerging southwestern North American megadrought in 2020–2021 in Nature Climate Change – 2022

* Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime (or any wrongful act) is held entirely or partially at fault for the harm that befell them.