A Mega-Drought Predicted for CA

Long-time reporter Lou Cannon writes for RealClearPolitics about the continuing, worsening drought parching the American West. Cannon cites research appearing in a new journal Science Advances.

If the scientists who have examined tree rings that reveal weather data back to the year 1000 are right, the Southwest probably is not in the late stages of a normal drought but the beginning phase of a 35-year mega-drought -- the sort that contributed to the extinction of the ancient Pueblo peoples, or Anasazi, of the Colorado Plateau.

What he reports I also have seen in my own recent travels up and down much of California. I've written about our dry region repeatedly, including twice so far this year, here and here.

A mega-drought could herald the extinction of California agriculture, some of the world's most productive. Little more than weeds and scrub oak grow here without irrigation.