The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) brought back its Climate Change Indicator’s platform last week.
The agency’s post, titled “Climate Change Indicators: Drought,” shows there is no cause for alarm that climate change is increasing drought.
The data cited and graphed by EPA shows no trend towards greater numbers of droughts or droughts of greater severity.
They say,
“Average drought conditions across the nation have varied over time,” writes EPA. “The 1930s and 1950s saw the most widespread droughts, while the last 50 years have generally been wetter than average [see the figure below]. Over the entire period … the overall trend has been toward wetter conditions.”
EPA’s drought climate change indicator confirms what other sources of data have shown.
As reported in Climate at a Glance: Drought, for example, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports with “high confidence” that precipitation has increased over mid-latitude land areas of the Northern Hemisphere (including the United States) during the past 70 years.
The IPCC also has “low confidence” about any negative precipitation trends occurring globally.
Moreover, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports America is currently undergoing its longest period in recorded history with less than 40 percent of the country experiencing “very dry” conditions.
Also, the United States in 2017 – and then again in 2019 – registered its smallest percentage of land area experiencing drought.
Because drought is a primary climate component that would affect wildfires, it is not surprising to find real-world data show the number of wildfires and acres burned have fallen in recent decades, as well.
EPA’s Climate Change Indicators document discussing drought examines the ups and downs in dryness in different locations in different years across the United States.
The only conclusion one can draw from the document and the data about drought in the United States is that the modest warming of the past 150 years has produced no measurable change in the incidences or severity of drought.
Read more at Climate Realism
We have had Droughts in the past that had nothing to do with the way we live its just these days we have idiots trying to change the way we live like Robert Redford Leonardo DiCaprio, Laurie David and Al Gore the Bore
Currently most of California is in severe or extreme drought. One government website was listing the “climate crisis” as the cause. They don’t seem to care about what the EPA or IPCC is saying because it isn’t consistent with their political agenda. Droughts in California are normal with records of droughts in the 1800’s long before SUV’s.
The MSM relentlessly claims that drought and forest fires are proof of global warming . It would be refreshingly honest for them to point out that we don’t fight forest fires until after they start. There’s very little prevention. We all know what an ounce of prevention is worth.
A warmer World would be a wetter World, without being a Waterworld. But even that isn’t happening.
A Spanish Professor said in 2018 that the greening of the Earth would stop because plants cannot keep growing and growing from more carbon dioxide without more water and nutrients.
Well, a fair chunk of the carbon dioxide that enters plants can end up in the soil. Soil carbon can make water and nutrients more available. Plant growth can cause a rise in rainfall and extra CO2 can reduce water use in plants.
All in all, the situation is not disastrous.
What said professor neglects to consider is that higher CO2 levels means less water is lost by plants as they take in CO2. So there is less water loss from the plants and the soil.
There is a well-reasoned theory that at extreme heights (over 300 ft), the most limiting factor on further tree growth is water movement.
Therefore, it is not impossible that the tallest trees on Earth could grow somewhat taller in a higher carbon dioxide atmosphere, rather than becoming extinct as we are usually told, due to that reduced water loss when taking in the necessary CO2 for growth.
Equally, we are told that Australia’s arid-lands flora will suffer, yet more efficient water use and increased rainfall, however patchy, will see the arid-lands green and bloom even more.