Extended megadroughts in the southwestern United States during Pleistocene interglacials

Peter J. Fawcett (), Josef P. Werne, R. Scott Anderson, Jeffrey M. Heikoop, Erik T. Brown, Melissa A. Berke, Susan J. Smith, Fraser Goff, Linda Donohoo-Hurley, Luz M. Cisneros-Dozal, Stefan Schouten, Jaap S. Sinninghe Damsté, Yongsong Huang, Jaime Toney, Julianna Fessenden, Giday WoldeGabriel, Viorel Atudorei, John W. Geissman and Craig D. Allen
Additional contact information
Peter J. Fawcett: University of New Mexico
Josef P. Werne: University of Minnesota Duluth
R. Scott Anderson: School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, Northern Arizona University
Jeffrey M. Heikoop: EES-14, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Erik T. Brown: University of Minnesota Duluth
Melissa A. Berke: University of Minnesota Duluth
Susan J. Smith: Laboratory of Paleoecology, Bilby Research Center, Northern Arizona University
Fraser Goff: University of New Mexico
Linda Donohoo-Hurley: University of New Mexico
Luz M. Cisneros-Dozal: EES-14, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Stefan Schouten: NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
Jaap S. Sinninghe Damsté: NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
Yongsong Huang: Brown University
Jaime Toney: EES-14, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Julianna Fessenden: School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, Northern Arizona University
Giday WoldeGabriel: School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, Northern Arizona University
Viorel Atudorei: University of New Mexico
John W. Geissman: University of New Mexico
Craig D. Allen: USGS Fort Collins Science Center, Jemez Mountains Field Station

Nature, 2011, vol. 470, issue 7335, 518-521

Abstract: A history of megadroughts Droughts lasting tens of years are known to have occurred in the southwestern United States during the past two millennia, but model simulations suggest that much longer 'megadroughts' might occur in a future, warmer climate. A new analysis of a lake sediment core from northern New Mexico reveals that such extreme droughts have occurred before: millennial-scale megadroughts were a regular feature of the warmest phases of Pleistocene interglacials. Mean annual temperatures during these droughts were comparable with or higher than today's. Comparison of the mid-Pleistocene climate record with that of the Holocene shows many similarities and suggests that were it not for anthropogenic warming, the southwestern United States would probably be entering a cool and wet phase by now.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09839 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:470:y:2011:i:7335:d:10.1038_nature09839

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature09839

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().