‘Megadrought’ Coming to U.S.

If climate change continues at its current pace, a “megadrought” could envelop the U.S. Southwest and the Great Plains in the middle of this century and last as long as three decades. That horrific prediction was made by researchers from NASA and Cornell and Columbia universities. Such a drought would bring major water shortages and dry conditions that could lead to wildfires, the researchers warned. “We really need to start thinking in longer-term horizons about how we’re going to manage it,” said Toby R. Ault, an assistant professor at Cornell and co-author of the study. “This is a slow-moving natural hazard that humans are used to dealing with and used to managing.”