Image: Map of drought potential
Courtesy Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews, redrawn by UCAR
updated 10/19/2010 5:30:36 PM ET 2010-10-19T21:30:36

Increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe — including the U.S. — are likely over the next 30 years, a new study predicts. Moreover, by the year 2100 drought in some regions could be unprecedented in modern times.

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"We are facing the possibility of widespread drought in the coming decades, but this has yet to be fully recognized by both the public and the climate change research community," study author Aiguo Dai said in a statement. "If the projections in this study come even close to being realized, the consequences for society worldwide will be enormous."





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By the 2030s, the central and western U.S. could see average readings dropping to -4 to -6, the study projected.

Areas likely to experience significant drying include:

  • the western two-thirds of the United States;
  • regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea;
  • large parts of southwest Asia;
  • southeast Asia, including China and neighboring countries;
  • most of Africa and Australia.


That doesn't necessarily mean that agriculture will migrate from the drought areas to these places in the high latitudes, Dai wrote.


Courtesy Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews, redrawn by UCAR
This map showing drought patterns over the last decade uses the Palmer Drought Severity Index, which assigns positive numbers when conditions are unusually wet for a particular region, and negative numbers when conditions are unusually dry.

The study's findings are based on 22 computer models and the best current predictions of climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions. This could change depending on actual greenhouse emissions in the future as well as natural climate cycles such as El Nino, Dai said.

The study appears this week in the journal Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change. It was supported by the National Science Foundation.

Reuters contributed to this report.


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