A new study has found that the 2012-2014 California drought was the worst for 1 ,200 year. This conclusion comes from scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHIOI) and the University of Minnesota. Their study has been accepted by the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Given the current human influence on the climate, the researchers predict that another super-dry and hot drought will occur. Keving Anchukaitis and Daniel Griffin asked “How uncommon is California’s drought?” The pair set out to compare the current drought to other droughts in California history. They collected tree rings from both southern and central California blue oaks. Griffin, Assistant: Griffin says that California’s blue oaks were as near to natural rain gauges as they can be. They thrive in the most dry environments that trees are allowed to grow in California. The blue oaks can be particularly sensitive to changes in moisture. One can observe how their moisture levels fluctuated by looking at the tree rings. Is there a drought? California Authentic Kratom defines drought as “1. A prolonged or extended period with very low or zero rainfall. It can lead to severe water shortages. 2. “Thirst” is a rare emotion. Kevin Anchukaitis collects a sample of the tree rings from an 300-year-old blue oak in California. Anchukaitis and Griffin used their data from the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), to reconstruct the rainfall back to the 13th centuries. The severity of the 2012-2014 drought was also determined by the combination of NOAA’s estimations of the Palmer Drought Index, an indicator of soil moisture fluctuations and the North American Drought Atlas. These two sources provided complementary information to the scientists on rainfall and soil moisture over the past thousand years. Researchers found that although California has had a long history of drought, it is unusual for the state to have such low precipitation. This combined with record-breaking temperatures caused the water scarcity that has lasted years. The temperature is also important, Mr. Anchukaitis stated: “While precipitation sets the pace of California droughts, it’s the pitch that matters most.” Former WHOI postdoctoral scholar and NOAA Climate & Global Change Fellow, Mr. Griffin said, “We were genuinely shocked at the results. California’s drought is a reality. Tree-ring research has shown that the extreme droughts of the past are more common than the ones from recent times. However, this time the results were different.” The evidence that they collected shows that California has experienced mega-droughts. multi-decadal droughts. These droughts likely included occasional rainy years even though the overall effect of the drying over many decades was one that led to general dryness. The drought was worse This short-term drought is more severe than the previous ones that occurred over successive years since the 13th centuries. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says tree rings can provide useful data for analyzing historical weather, climate and natural disaster patterns. Tree rings can be affected by fires, droughts, and other environmental factors. The tree samples from thousands-year-old trees provide a visual timeline of pre-Columbian times. Each ring represents one year. Researchers believe that such extreme heat droughts will occur, due to the way human activity has been influencing the climate. California could be spared from drought this year, if it has an extremely-wet winter. Anchukaitis cautions: “But there is no doubt that we are entering a new era where human-wrought changes to the climate system will become important for determining the severity of droughts and their consequences for coupled human and natural systems.” Citation: “How unusual is the 2012-2014 California drought?” Daniel Griffin and Kevin J Anchukaitis, Geophysical Research Letter, DOI: 10.1002/2014GL062433. Dec 3, 2014.
