Monday, January 27, 2014

California droughts in the news...

I swear I didn't know this was going to happen.  

But in yesterday's (1/26/14) San Jose Mercury News, the front page article was all about Megadroughts.  The article, California drought: Past dry periods have lasted more than 200 years, scientists say (Paul Rogers, staff writer for the Mercury) echoes almost exactly what we found in our SearchResearch challenge.  

Interestingly, they show a slightly different version of the drought chart we found.  

Here, I've linked to their chart, which is based on work by E. R. Cook, et al., in Earth-Science Reviews. 



That article is: 
Cook, Edward R., et al. "North American drought: reconstructions, causes, and consequences." Earth-Science Reviews 81.1 (2007): 93-134.

and the chart above is based on Cook's Figure 10 (which is really about all of the west, including everything from east Texas up to Montana and west to the Pacific).  (Link to the PDF, if you want to read more.) 

Keep searching.... 


5 comments:

  1. The day will come when this blog will be quoted because of the quality of the searches and interesting subjects. Who knows this may be where the idea of the article came from. This is an exciting thought.

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    Replies
    1. Agree with you, RoseMary! Dr. Russell SearchResearch is an incredible source for learning and to get information. I'm sure many use Dr. Dan's ideas and of course the tools that he teaches us every week.

      In addition to that, Dr. Russell, always choose the perfect time to show information; for example: Metadata in pictures, 3D printing and now, mega-droughts; just to mention some.

      Congratulations, Dr. Russell, and thanks for doing the 1MM and for this post.

      Have a wonderful week.

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  2. I think a skilled dedicated SR genius--any of us--could suss out if there is a correlation with Dan's topics and San Jose Mercury News items a few days later.

    Hmmm ?

    Seriously though, the drought topic has been of interest to mainstream media for several years

    Cheers

    jon

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  3. I just read a new article about the California Droughts. It is not the lack of rainfall. It is in Spanish and is from BBC.

    Cinco datos alarmantes sobre la sequía que afecta a California

    Google translated version: Five alarming data on the drought in California

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