The 2000-2004 North American Drought was the Worst in 800 Years
Welcome to the 'megadrought' An analysis of past climate data published yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience paints a less-than-rosy picture for the U.S., Mexico, and Canada in the 21st century. The 2000-2004 dry spell was the worst drought in the region in 800 years, the researchers claim, and before the century is over we'll look back on those days as the wetter end of a much larger hydroclimate shift. Dry conditions will become the "new normal." They invoked the word "megadrought." The research, presented by ten researchers from several North American universities and supported by the likes of NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and other institutions, doesn't make a call on whether the ongoing drought in the Midwest is tied to the same forces that fueled the 2000-2004 drought. But it does state that the climate extremes we experienced at the beginning of the last decade were...