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NASA Study Finds 1934 Had Worst Drought of Last Thousand Years
Watts Up with That ^ | October 14, 2014 | By Anthony Watts

Posted on 10/14/2014 11:32:36 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee

A new study using a reconstruction of North American drought history over the last 1,000 years found that the drought of 1934 was the driest and most widespread of the last millennium.

Using a tree-ring-based drought record from the years 1000 to 2005 and modern records, scientists from NASA and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory found the 1934 drought was 30 percent more severe than the runner-up drought (in 1580) and extended across 71.6 percent of western North America. For comparison, the average extent of the 2012 drought was 59.7 percent.

“It was the worst by a large margin, falling pretty far outside the normal range of variability that we see in the record,” said climate scientist Ben Cook at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Cook is lead author of the study, which will publish in the Oct. 17 edition of Geophysical Research Letters.

Two sets of conditions led to the severity and extent of the 1934 drought. First, a high-pressure system in winter sat over the west coast of the United States and turned away wet weather – a pattern similar to that which occurred in the winter of 2013-14. Second, the spring of 1934 saw dust storms, caused by poor land management practices, suppress rainfall. . .

(Excerpt) Read more at wattsupwiththat.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News
KEYWORDS: 1934; drought; dustbowl

1 posted on 10/14/2014 11:32:36 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
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To: Brad from Tennessee

FDR’s fault.


2 posted on 10/14/2014 11:53:09 PM PDT by LT Brass Bancroft
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To: Brad from Tennessee

So, what happened to the missing precipitation that should have fallen?


3 posted on 10/15/2014 12:04:57 AM PDT by clearcarbon
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To: clearcarbon; SunkenCiv; All

Would this rate as “Catastrophism.”


4 posted on 10/15/2014 12:18:20 AM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: clearcarbon

[So, what happened to the missing precipitation that should have fallen?]

I guess it remained in the atmosphere until it fell somewhere else. When I lived in the Southwest I can remember black clouds rolling in with lightning and wind gusts but no rain. It would evaporate before it hit the ground.


5 posted on 10/15/2014 12:23:56 AM PDT by Brad from Tennessee (A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.)
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Comment #6 Removed by Moderator

To: LT Brass Bancroft

I remember in school the history textbooks blamed the Dust Bowl on the Depression and Herbert Hoover, until FDR & his alphabet agencies came to the rescue.


7 posted on 10/15/2014 1:37:11 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("I am a radicalized infidel.")
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To: Brad from Tennessee

Doesn’t even begin to compare to the drought which resulted from passage of the Eighteenth Amendment.


8 posted on 10/15/2014 2:21:50 AM PDT by Jack Hammer
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To: Brad from Tennessee

This does nothing to make Muslims feel good about themselves.


9 posted on 10/15/2014 4:59:56 AM PDT by Organic Panic
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To: Brad from Tennessee

My grandfather could have told them this for free. My dad was born in ‘34, so I’ve heard all about it.


10 posted on 10/15/2014 6:36:29 AM PDT by nobamanomore
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To: Brad from Tennessee

But, wait! What about the twenty five year drought that drove the Anazazi out of their pueblos!


11 posted on 10/15/2014 8:35:09 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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