Prospect of Dust Bowl 2 stalks America

American Geosciences Institute’s magazine Earth says prospects for cattle ranchers and farmers in the American Southwest appear grim.

Researchers predict that over the next two or three decades the area from West Texas to New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and on into Southern California, Nevada and Utah will transition to a climate that may make the 1930s Dust Bowl seem mild and brief.

The less than rosy forecast comes at a time when the region is already experiencing giant dust storms in Arizona, and Texas is in the grip of an extreme, three-year drought. Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and other states are also experiencing drought conditions.

The 1930s Dust Bowl saw more than 20 million hectares of farmland lost soil to airborne dust.

The researchers say the region’s problem now is that rising temperatures will contribute directly and indirectly to there being more dust in the air. Then, persistent droughts, increasingly violent and variable weather patterns, urban and suburban development and even off-road recreational vehicle usage threaten to shroud the West in dust.