Drought Maps

Catastrophic Projections For U.S. and Mexico Drought, and Many other Places in the World
 In climate-change predictions we often hear of rising sea levels and increased weather extremes.  But what does that mean for those who live nowhere near a coast?  There are forecasts of "wet areas getting wetter and dry areas getting dryer."  Specifically, I've read that the "subtropics" become dryer--but I did not know until recently that "subtropics" includes Texas and the Southwest. 

         Map 1:                                Approx. 2050's to 2060's

Time period is 2050's to 2060's
Source:  http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/13/483247/james-hansen-is-correct-about-catastrophic-projections-for-us-drought-if-we-dont-act-now/

 These are drought maps, taking into account increased heat and evapotranspiration. These maps don't show just a little dryer:  The red and dark orange zones covering not just the Southwest, but most of the country, represent Dust Bowl conditions.  The dark red zones are even worse--notice that they cover large parts of Texas and most of Mexico.   These are unimaginable conditions.  The projections assume that we will continue to burn fossil fuels at the present rate.  Indeed that is what we show every sign of doing. 

  Map 1 - 2050's to 2060's   I obtained this map from a Joseph Romm article at the Think Progress website.   Romm explained in the article (May 13, 2012) that this drought projection was for approx. 2050's to 2060's.   The map is from a study by Aiguo Dai, who originally published it as being for the 2030's.  Romm said Dai  "... is in the process of revising his analysis, but the figure below (which had been his 2030s projection in his original version) is a rough representation of where his analysis projects things will be in Hansen’s time frame for the U.S."    
        Romm's article is called, “James Hansen Is Correct About Catastrophic Projections For U.S. Drought If We Don't Act Now.”   His article was written to defend James Hansen’s drought predictions against some criticisms by Martin Hoerling.      
         The link: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/13/483247/james-hansen-is-correct-about-catastrophic-projections-for-us-drought-if-we-dont-act-now/

  Map 2 - 2060's
This map was in Joseph Romm's related, earlier article, "Nature Publishes My Piece on Dust-Bowlification and the Grave Threat it Poses to Food Security" (October 26, 2011).  The Nature article was called "The Next Dust Bowl," and is not readily available without payment or subscription.  However, in this article on Think Progress, he covers most of what was in the Nature article, and includes this map which is not in the Nature article. This map also originated with Aigo Dai's study.  (Link for Dai is farther below.) However, Romm's articles are the only readily-available source for these maps on the web in full resolution.
       Link:
 http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/10/26/353997/romm/2011/04/07/207853/usgs-dust-bowl-storms-southwest/
 

Source:  http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/10/26/353997/romm/2011/04/07/207853/usgs-dust-bowl-storms-southwest/

Aiguo Dai maps:
 Here are the series of maps as published by Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in 2010.  The study is under revision, and the  2030's map here is the one Romm used as a rough representation for the period "just after mid-century, the 2050s and 2060s."   Map 1 is (d) and Map 2 is (e).

Link information:  

 Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, “Drought under global warming: a review” (2010) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.81/full   -This source is limited to institutions or purchasers, but abstract and low- resolution images (scroll to figure 11) can be viewed at:   http://wires.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WiresArticle/articles.html?doi=10.1002%2Fwcc.81  

Select the “images” tab and scroll to figure 11, which shows six maps from 1950’s to 2090’s. The “2030’s” map corresponds to Map 1, as this was before revision.


 Here is a NOAA video explaining the basic mechanism of "wet getting wetter and dry getting dryer."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wAbMuefx3oE