2008 Woodie Awards
'Dust Bowl' conditions recurring
By Jen Meyer
Rocket Copy Editor
Issue date: 3/3/06 Section: News
Meteorologists think another "Dust Bowl" scale drought could take place in the Midwest soon, according to a Feb. 23 press release from AccuWeather.com.
Warmer Atlantic Ocean temperatures and cooling Pacific waters could be to blame. Unusual surface temperatures in the oceans are causing the jet stream and the air current that carries weather across the United States to shift, creating higher surface temperatures and lessening precipitation in the Great Plains region, according to AccuWeather.com.
"The combination of low moisture and higher temperatures would be a crippling one-two punch for the Great Plains should these conditions persist, much like what occurred during the Dust Bowl drought," said AccuWeather.com Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams.
Lang Smith, an environmental geographer in Slippery Rock University's Department of Geography, Geology and the Environment, isn't stunned by the news.
"It's not surprising," Smith said. "There have been cycles of droughts, and it seems they (the meteorologists) think the cycles are increasing."
The Dust Bowl, which lasted from 1931-1939, was the worst drought in U.S. history. America's agricultural region was devastated, lengthening the effects of the Great Depression.
Many farmers, watching their fields literally blow away in the wind, abandoned their farms.
"At the time, they blamed it on the drought, on God's will," Smith said, "but they were plowing up huge amounts of land to grow more crops and make more money."
Dust storms were frequent in the Great Plains.
"The dust storms fed off the over-plowed and over-grazed lands of the Great Plains," said Dale Mohler, AccuWeather.com expert senior meteorologist.
Smith agreed.
"The '30s was a huge ecological disaster, but that's what happens when you break up grasslands," he said.
However, Mohler said dust storms are an unlikely possibility if a major drought hits.
"Today's agricultural practices, such as crop rotation and improved irrigation, as well as drought-resistant hybrid crops, would likely prevent the landscape from being ruined as it was in the 1930s," he said.
Smith is skeptical.
"It's very possible," he said. "Irrigation makes what they're doing possible, but they're still susceptible to a big natural event."
Smith said the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the southern Great Plains region's biggest sources of water, has been greatly reduced.
In fact, people in the region have been drawing water 10 times faster than its natural recharge rate, according to the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture.
The aquifer, which runs from South Dakota to Texas, irrigates about 16 million acres of crops, provides drinking water to many city residents and covers 174,000 square miles.
The Hurricanes in the past year are also linked to the possible drought, according to Accuweather.com.
Warmer Atlantic Ocean temperatures and cooling Pacific waters could be to blame. Unusual surface temperatures in the oceans are causing the jet stream and the air current that carries weather across the United States to shift, creating higher surface temperatures and lessening precipitation in the Great Plains region, according to AccuWeather.com.
"The combination of low moisture and higher temperatures would be a crippling one-two punch for the Great Plains should these conditions persist, much like what occurred during the Dust Bowl drought," said AccuWeather.com Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams.
Lang Smith, an environmental geographer in Slippery Rock University's Department of Geography, Geology and the Environment, isn't stunned by the news.
"It's not surprising," Smith said. "There have been cycles of droughts, and it seems they (the meteorologists) think the cycles are increasing."
The Dust Bowl, which lasted from 1931-1939, was the worst drought in U.S. history. America's agricultural region was devastated, lengthening the effects of the Great Depression.
Many farmers, watching their fields literally blow away in the wind, abandoned their farms.
"At the time, they blamed it on the drought, on God's will," Smith said, "but they were plowing up huge amounts of land to grow more crops and make more money."
Dust storms were frequent in the Great Plains.
"The dust storms fed off the over-plowed and over-grazed lands of the Great Plains," said Dale Mohler, AccuWeather.com expert senior meteorologist.
Smith agreed.
"The '30s was a huge ecological disaster, but that's what happens when you break up grasslands," he said.
However, Mohler said dust storms are an unlikely possibility if a major drought hits.
"Today's agricultural practices, such as crop rotation and improved irrigation, as well as drought-resistant hybrid crops, would likely prevent the landscape from being ruined as it was in the 1930s," he said.
Smith is skeptical.
"It's very possible," he said. "Irrigation makes what they're doing possible, but they're still susceptible to a big natural event."
Smith said the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the southern Great Plains region's biggest sources of water, has been greatly reduced.
In fact, people in the region have been drawing water 10 times faster than its natural recharge rate, according to the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture.
The aquifer, which runs from South Dakota to Texas, irrigates about 16 million acres of crops, provides drinking water to many city residents and covers 174,000 square miles.
The Hurricanes in the past year are also linked to the possible drought, according to Accuweather.com.
