U.S. drought grows to cover widest area since 1956

(CBS/AP) MINNEAPOLIS - The drought gripping the United States is the widest since 1956, according to new data released Monday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Fifty-five percent of the continental U.S. was in a moderate to extreme drought by the end of June, NOAA's National Climactic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., said in its monthly State of the Climate drought report. That's the largest percentage since December 1956, when 58 percent of the country was covered by drought.

Last week, a government report said 2011's record drought in Texas was made "roughly 20 times more likely" because of man-made climate change, specifically meaning warming that comes from greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide, CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports.

(At left, watch a "CBS Evening News" story on the drought)

The study, requested by NOAA, looked at 50 years of weather data in Texas and concluded that man-made warming had to be a factor in the drought.

This summer, 80 percent of the U.S. is abnormally dry, and the monthly drought report said the drought expanded in the West, Great Plains and Midwest last month with the 14th warmest and 10th driest June on record.

NOAA links extreme weather to climate change
Drought reaches record 56% of continental U.S.
Summer 2012: Glimpse of climate change effects?

The nation's corn and soybean belt has been especially hard hit over the past three months, the report said. That region has experienced its seventh warmest and 10th driest April-to-June period.

(At left, watch a "CBS Evening News" report on corn farmers struggling to survive)

"Topsoil has dried out and crops, pastures and rangeland have deteriorated at a rate rarely seen in the last 18 years," the report said.

The report is based on a data set going back to 1895 called the Palmer Drought Index, which feeds into the widely watched and more detailed U.S. Drought Monitor. It reported last week that 61 percent of the continental U.S. was in a moderate to exceptional drought. However, the weekly Drought Monitor goes back only 12 years, so climatologists use the Palmer Drought Index for comparing droughts before 2000.

A cow looks for something to eat as it grazes in a dry pasture southwest of Hays, Kansas, July 6, 2012.

/ AP Photo/The Hays Daily News

In southern Illinois' Effingham County, Kenny Brummer is facing a double whammy -- the drought has savaged the 800 acres of corn he grows for his 400 head of cattle and some 30,000 hogs, leaving him scrambling to find the couple of hundred thousand bushels of feed he'll need.

"Where am I going to get that from? You have concerns about it every morning when you wake up," Brummer, 59, said Monday. "The drought is bad, but that's just half of the problem on this farm."

17 Photos

Massive drought strikes U.S.

[raptor-022]

Dragos111 July 17, 2012 3:50 PM EDT
"The Sun is unusually active....A solar flare has been firing extra energy directly at the Earth....When the solar activity ebbs, so will the temperatures".



Seriously, this is an 11-year solar cycle that scientists have been aware of for hundreds of years, and most of the CME's aren't even directed towards the Earth. While the total solar irradiance (TSI) is the amount of solar radiative energy incident on the Earth's upper atmosphere, and it does indeed vary systematically over the 11-year sunspot cycle, TSI variations show small but detectable trends that affect radio communications more than anything else.

What's very interesting, is that in the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend, with the sun and climate going in opposite directions.


**************

Sun Headed Into Hibernation, Solar Studies Predict
Sunspots may disappear altogether in next cycle

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/06/110614-sun-hibernation-solar-cycle-sunspots-space-science/#

[raptor-022]

Solar Cycle Prediction
(Updated 2012/07/02)

The current prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 60 in the Spring of 2013. We are currently over three years into Cycle 24. The current predicted size makes this the smallest sunspot cycle in about 100 years.

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml

[IMP578]

Even the most ignorant people have to admit by now that we are in the midst of drastic climate change. Nature is finally holding us accountable. The US is the biggest glutton in the world, not willing to do anything for the environment. We insist on our way of life, ever bigger homes, cars, overpopulation....,not willing to give an inch. Keep on going. Once we run out of water, food and breathable air I'd like to see you maintain your wasteful way of life. America is the biggest energy hog in the world. By now even the dumbest person should know that we can no longer continue on this path and we need to change our way of life now. Our politicians need to stop playing these stupid games and sell out the environment to win an election or feed their overflowing bank accounts. By now the U.S. is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. We need to elect people who have our welfare in mind and don't sell us to the greedy gas and energy corporations. Do you realize that our politicians count on us being stupid and staying stupid?! The apathy and ignorance in the general population scare me to death. We have been turned into puppets. Folks, it's time to wake up!

[Dragos111]

Not quite. Look at the articles that now abound on all the news sites. The Sun is unusually active. A solar flare has been firing extra energy directly at the Earth. Reports of people seeing the Northern Lights as far south as Iowa abound. The Northern Lights are just one facet of all that excess energy. Higher temperatures are another result.

Look at the three heat waves we have had this year. In early Spring the temps went over 90 in the Midwest. Around July 4th temps went over 100. Now we have more high temps. Each one of these heat waves was preceded by massive solar flares and coronal mass ejections which were pointed directly at Earth.

This is simple cause and effect. No amount of taxes or fees imposed, no Capping and Trading, no amount of money redistributed from the US to poor African nations is going to have any impact on this. When the solar activity ebbs, so will the temperatures.

[Jim1900]

Dragos111,

That is unusually dense even for a right-winger. The solar sun spot cycle occurs every 11 years. But you think you are contributing some sort of scientific observation to the discussion. There is no hope for the South.

[raptor-022]

EmpireGeorge______-- July 16, 2012 5:29 PM EDT
"better yet, let's all install compact flourescent light bulbs and drive a prius, and magically the planet stops changing it's climate."


=====
hypnotoad72 July 16, 2012 6:28 PM EDT
"EmpireGeorge - Your sarcasm does relate to good points. The manmade influence on the climate might not dissipate instantly, but mankind does have a choice as to what it puts value on."
=====




Yes "hypnotoad72," conservative "sarcasm does relate to good points," and choices that we all have today thanks to technology, despite the deniers need to keep worshiping the fossil fuel industry, and its continuously increasing CO2 emissions around the world.

Fighting a battle to save the incandescent lighting dinosaur is just plain ignorant, especially with all the newer LED choices today. By increasing our efficient use of both energy and water, decreases the need for both, which is just plain smarter!

If these deniers would just realize how much water is used in mining and within the fossil fuel industry (especially in tar sands extraction using massive quantities of both energy and water), 'maybe' they wouldn't be making such ignorant claims and accusations! But then again, why would they stop?

[raptor-022]

ffoulkes2009: "actually, Texas is doing just fine this year. Guess all that praying..."


athena8: "Liberals are mean, condescending,hateful people, who have no God...we have had a nice summer so far here in South Texas...We don't kneel to Obama or green agenda...Take a few extra showers, crank up the AC, or sit our under the shade tree with an ice water...Common sense."




I love it, "common sense" for the anti-science texans and other rush limbaugh/faux nooz people, is "take a few extra showers, crank up the AC, or sit our under the shade tree with an ice water". LOL!

Thanks for proving that you just cannot fix STUPID!

[raptor-022]

ThomasSense July 16, 2012 10:55 PM EDT
"And when you are finally convinced that man has cause climate change, you will also discover that there is no switch that can be flipped to stop the droughts, the floods, the wildfires, the mile wide tornadoes, the huge hurricanes.... CO2 in the air will be there for a 1000 years."



Yes, we've probably passed the "tipping point" and scientists tell us that even if CO2 emissions were stopped completely today, our planet would continue to warm for decades. All the footdragging to reduce our CO2 emissions linked to the deniers not willing to address the science, and the huge misinformation campaign that has been waged by the fossil fuel industry, has only put mankind between a rock and a hard place.

[prhansen]

I love your comment, I'm with you 100% on this one.

[ffoulkes2009]

Widest drought since 1956 only means there was a worse one in 1956...so some 60+ years back it was hotter and more widespread than it is now...

[raptor-022]

You sound just like anthony watts and steven goddard last year, without realizing that many places in the U.S. have been experiencing a continuous drought for years, with a wetter El Nino year thrown into the mix here and there! Look at the long range conditions or heaven forbid -- the overall climatic conditions -- and take into account how many years it took to fill Lake Powell.

BTW, just who is steven goddard if not a fictional character like john galt?

[raptor-022]

Actually, looking back again at the historical droughts just for texas, it's mainly erratic and perhaps they've become more frequent recently, but droughts have been coming in clusters since 1895. There doesn't seem to be any significant trend, and the only reason that the 1956 texas drought was worse so far, was that it continued to get worse from 1951-1956.

While scientists see a weak El Nino forming by late summer or early autumn 2012, which could possibly bring more moisture to the southern states like texas with a more southerly jet stream, a few rain storms or even one good year of precipitation usually doesn't end a severe drought.

The long-term precipitation trend in texas is actually positive, but temperatures in texas, however, are steadily rising. This affects droughts because it causes plants, ponds, and streams to dry out faster. And remember, dry ground makes for hot air in the summer. So this drought is going to be a couple of degrees more brutal, day in and day out, because of global warming......er, I mean climate change!

[foo8259]

"It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!"

[nohater]

don't they invest in deep wells that pump up water by engine or electric turbines? grandfather tells of his time in AZ years ago where wells were pumping up water from deep underground. if AZ can do it then why not elsewhere? there must be a water table beneath MN and other states.

[Jim1900]

The Ogallala Aquifer is probably the only thing keeping the Plains States going now for wheat. I don't think that does much good in the Midwest for corn, since they are not set up for that. But you could pump in water from the Mississippi River or Great Lakes if you want to. It is just a matter of cost. The Republicans will have to decide that they want to do that rather than maintain aircraft carriers and invade Arab countries.

My bet is that they go with the aircraft carriers.

[shear--2008]

I live in a little farm community/town called (REALLY) Farmer City, and since moving to the central Illinois area as a child in 1970, this year is the WORST drought I've ever been witness to. I think it's also been the HOTTEST summer I remember, and one that started in MARCH, with days in the 90's as early as April! Unheard of. This is certainly a crisis for anyone involved in agriculture, whether as a producer OR consumer!

[occupy_cbs]

ThomasNonSense: "The drought was in the US. Globally, it was cooler than it is now".



World Records Fourth-Warmest June Since 1880, U.S. Agency Says

The month of June globally was the fourth-warmest on record since 1880 and the 328th consecutive month with temperatures above the 20th-century average, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

Land temperatures were the all-time warmest, averaging 1.93 degree above the 132-year record.

"Most areas of the world experienced much higher-than-average monthly temperatures, including most of North America, Eurasia and northern Africa ," NOAA said in a statement.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-16/world-records-fourth-warmest-june-since-1880-u-s-agency-says.html