California’s drought is worst for 1,200 years – but worse is to come, warn scientists
Current short-term drought worse than any previous span of consecutive years of drought without reprieveIt comes as California is experiencing a wet start to December that could result in 12-inches (30 cm) of rain and severe snow over next two weeks
Experts say there is ‘no doubt’ we are entering a new era where humans have changed the climate system
By Mark Prigg
DailyMailUK
6 December 2014
California’s three year drought is the worst seen for over 1200 years, researchers have found.
Scientists looking at the cumulative effects of temperature, low precipitation and other factors said that it all adds up to the worst conditions in more than a millennium.
The also claim that worse could be to come, with droughts almost certain to occur again in the future.
A combination of record high temperatures and sparse rainfall during California’s three-year drought have produced the worst conditions in 1,200 years, according to a study accepted for publication by the American Geophysical Union (AGU).
‘The current California drought is exceptionally severe in the context of at least the last millennium and is driven by reduced though not unprecedented precipitation and record high temperatures,’ the report’s authors said in the study released late Thursday.
The study by the University of Minnesota and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said that warm, dry conditions have shrunk the supply of surface water from reservoirs, streams and the Sierra Nevada snowpack in the state, even as demand from people and farms has gone up, resulting in unprecedented scarcity.
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