Why future droughts will not be about rain

illuminem summarizes for you the essential news of the day. Read the full piece on The Washington Post or enjoy below:

🗞️ Driving the news: A new study in Science Advances reveals that rising temperatures, more than decreasing rainfall, are amplifying drought severity across the American West
• High evaporation rates, driven by record-breaking heat, have become a more critical factor than rain in sustaining droughts since 2000

🔭 The context: Historically, droughts were driven by natural shifts in rainfall patterns, but human-caused warming has shifted the primary factor to evaporation
• The study shows that “evaporative demand” now accounts for 61% of the 2020-2022 drought's severity, reducing water flow in rivers like the Colorado, essential to millions

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: This trend toward “aridification” indicates a prolonged, hotter, and drier future, which threatens water sources and biodiversity in the region and could lead to more intense wildfires and ecosystem changes

⏭️ What's next: If temperatures continue to rise, the West could experience catastrophic droughts every six years by the century’s end, transforming ecosystems and pressuring water-sharing agreements among western states

💬 One quote: “This is quite different from our grandma’s drought,” - Rong Fu, professor at UCLA, noting that temperature-driven evaporation is changing the nature of droughts

📈 One stat: Without intervention, future droughts in the American West could become 1-in-6-year events by the end of the century, compared to the current 1-in-1,300-year likelihood

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