Climate Change May Make Future Droughts Worse
Texas has endured its worst one-year drought in recorded history. And the hottest July. As for August, it's "on pace to break the all-time temperature record set in July," says John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist.
So, is this the result of climate change?
Scientists hedge, particularly when it comes to the drought, because they are reluctant to pin any single weather event on climate change. They point to La Niña, an intermittent Pacific Ocean phenomenon that affects storm development and movement as the immediate cause of the drought, because it tends to make winters in Texas and nearby ...
Comments (10)
Earl Barry
Funny - the scientists quoted in the article fall short of blaming climate change because it is unprovable yet our intrepid author has no such compunction as evidenced by the title. Grab 'em with the headline, eh?
Robert White
A good article; but apparently, we currently have neither El Niño or La Niña--a recent discussion by NASA calls this "la nada," which is easier to say than "El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) neutral" conditions. The effect of this has been a zonal flow that divides the northern and southern halves of the United States: north, colder and wetter and south, hotter and drier. Whether this pattern will continue, or what is its connection with global warming as a climatic trend, are still open questions (the ENSO diagnostic discussion is available at http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.pdf ).
David Huang via Texas Tribune on Facebook
C or F?
Priscilla Renteria via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Glad I won't be here!
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
No Rick Perr, no global warming.
Rick Scott McGuckin via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Weather Haiku/senryu:
Devil called Texas
He left a short, stern message:
Wants his weather back.
Kirk Holden
No matter what the rest of the climate is doing - the El Nino/La Nina oscillations are an integral component of climate. These two phenomena are a visible sign of an input to weather effects. El Nino makes Texas 'wetter than it would have been otherwise' and La Nina makes Texas 'hotter than it would have been otherwise'. If the past climate was cooler or dryer or warmer or wetter then both oscillations will make it 'hotter/cooler or wetter/dryer'. This is just algebra. We broke a record of oppressive heat with La Nina this year. This is because the overall world climate is, on the average hotter. Next La Nina will be worse. Next El Nino will be worse. This is just algebra.
Beverly Nuckols via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The Comal Springs did not run at all for 6 months in 1956. Climate does change, and the earth is not a closed system. Junk science title, but better comments in the body.
Robert White
Perhaps this is best seen as an upward inflection on a trend moving in the same direction (warmer, drier) but more slowly. I wonder whether ENSO has existed for a long time or if it is more recent; and what the effect of global warming will be on the processes that support it. I have to add that I am convinced global warming is quite real, and anthropogenic. I thnk the first I heard of this possibility was in a Saturday Evening Review article, ca. 1968, about the findings from the Mauna Loa atmospheric sciences data. Apparently the changes began with the industrial revolution and its use of coal; the article noted that carbon from coal burned in the 17th century is still present in the earth's atmosphere, today.
Dot Pate
I remember the 1950's and cracks so big in the ground you could break your ankle if you weren't careful. And on the horizon the clouds of dust storms so dense it was like a fog with winds that made our weather stripping at the front door sing loudly. That was in Houston.
I do not remember triple digit temperatures and no one had air conditioning at the time. Old timers complained about the rain, but they always did anyway. But, after all, this was Texas.