Tree rings indicate 2001-2022 is driest 22-year-period since at least 800 A.D., when Vikings sailed and Mayans built temples.
The drought that has parched California and the American West for much of the past two decades ranks as the driest 22-year period in at least 1,200 years, according to a new study published Monday.
“Here we are 22 years into a bad drought, and because of climate change we are now surpassing the severity of megadroughts that have always been thought of as the worst-case scenarios,” said Park Williams, an associate professor of geography at UCLA and lead author of“Scientists are the eyes for society,” Williams added. “It’s like when your eyes tell you that your head is about to hit a tree branch. You have to do something to avoid that. We see a danger now, right here in front of our eyes.
Taken together, the last 22 years now exceed the previous worst 22-year period, 1571 to 1593, in the historical record, measured by soil moisture. And with only two more months left in California’s winter rainy season, odds are this drought will continue, Williams said.
“We need to find a way to live within the real-world, increasingly limiting constraints,” said Field, who was not part of the research. There have been at least seven major “megadroughts” in the American West back to 800 A.D., Williams, his colleagues and other researchers have found. Some lasted decades. A megadrought in the 1100s and 1200s is believed to have contributed to the collapse of the Anasazi civilization in Arizona and New Mexico.
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