Climate change and aerosol pollution made drought inevitable in the US Southwest: Study
These circumstances, which began taking hold in about 1980, are likely here to stay as the planet warms, according to the study, published on Wednesday in Nature Geoscience.
Its authors attributed this decades-long trend toward less precipitation to La Niña-like conditions, weather patterns that lead to cooler surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean.
Even if El Niño-like conditions had prevailed instead, the Southwest would not have experienced a corresponding surge in rainfall, the researchers found.
'There's a uniform warming trend because of historical climate change, as well as emissions from anthropogenic aerosols, that both create a certain circulation pattern over the North Pacific,' lead author Yan-Ning Kuo, a doctoral student at Cornell University, said in a statement.
'Those two factors prevent the precipitation for the Southwestern U.S. from increasing, even under El Niño-like trends,' Kuo added.
The researchers drew their conclusions by abandoning popular climate models that they said in recent years have not accurately reflected sea surface temperatures as observed in real-time.
Instead, they designed their own simulations in which they could insert data from satellites and statistical models, and thereby isolate the impact of each contributing factor.
The post-1980 period in the U.S. Southwest exhibited the fastest soil-drying among past and future periods of similar lengths — a result that the authors attributed to human-induced warming and a decline in precipitation.
Even in a simulation of El Niño-like trends, the authors identified a tendency toward precipitation decline, counter to what they described as a 'canonical El Niño teleconnection,' or the relationship among weather patterns spanning the Pacific.
That 'unintuitive yet robust circulation change' is rooted not only in warming, but also in the radiative effects of manmade aerosol pollution, according to the study.
Co-author Flavio Lehner, an assistant professor in Earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell, said in a statement that this change points to a bigger shift in the so-called teleconnection that spans the Pacific Ocean.
'These external influences really modulate that relationship, so it doesn't behave exactly how we expect it to behave,' Lehner added.
While emission from vehicles and industry will likely decrease as countries in East Asia make air quality improvements, Lehner noted that warming temperatures could offset this positive momentum.
These gains, in other words, are 'unlikely to substantially alleviate the currently projected future drought risk,' according to the study.
'The warming is going to continue as far as we can tell,' Lehner said.
'That will gradually outweigh those benefits, as a warmer atmosphere tends to be thirstier, gradually drying out the Southwest,' he added.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
8 hours ago
- Washington Post
Ancient river landscapes under Antarctica may may stabilize ice sheet
Landscapes left behind by ancient rivers and buried beneath the Antarctic ice may affect the rate of ice loss, researchers report in Nature Geoscience. The team used radio echo sounding, a technique that measures ice thickness using radar, to study the East Antarctic Ice Sheet between Princess Elizabeth Land and George V Land in Antarctica. Parts of the ice sheet are thought to be particularly susceptible to climate change because the land beneath it contains huge troughs that let warming ocean water reach the ice, causing rapid shrinking.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Scientists make surprising discovery after attempting to remove dangerous fish from lake: 'It took us 25 years to prove why'
Scientists make surprising discovery after attempting to remove dangerous fish from lake: 'It took us 25 years to prove why' According to the Cornell Chronicle, years of efforts to remove an invasive species of smallmouth bass from an Adirondack lake have led scientists to a surprising discovery about why these efforts have not been successful. What's happening? Smallmouth bass may be a native North American species, but the species was only introduced to the Adirondacks in the 1900s. After their introduction, the smallmouth bass did what invasive species do and quickly took over many of the region's lakes, which resulted in significant declines in native fish populations. However, despite 25 years of efforts to eradicate the smallmouth bass from these lakes, the populations continued to thrive. Now, researchers have published a study with the surprising reason why eradication efforts have failed. According to the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, efforts to physically remove this species from these lakes to decrease the population size were unsuccessful because, over time, the smallmouth bass evolved to mature earlier and grow more quickly, resulting in smaller fish but a larger overall population. One of the senior researchers on the study, Peter McIntyre, explained: "Twenty-five years ago, Cornell's Adirondack Fishery Research Program set out to test whether we could functionally eradicate smallmouth bass from a lake. It took us 25 years to prove why the answer is no: the fish evolved to outmaneuver us." Why are evolving invasive species concerning? Invasive species, like smallmouth bass, already cause a plethora of problems when introduced to new ecosystems, so if they can evolve to avoid eradication, these issues worsen. Because invasive species spread so rapidly, they can destroy native species and ecosystems by outcompeting them for food and other vital resources. Invasive species can also introduce new diseases into ecosystems, which can decimate native species populations. Depending on the type of invasive species, other problems caused by their introduction could include impacted human food supplies, more extreme weather patterns, and altered soil chemistry. However, by prioritizing and protecting native species, as researchers tried to do in the Adirondacks by removing smallmouth bass, food supplies are protected, the spread of disease is limited, and natural resources are better conserved. What's being done about the smallmouth bass? The discovery of the smallmouth bass's evolution to outwit eradication highlights the need to prevent invasive species from entering ecosystems in the first place. Do you think America does a good job of protecting its natural beauty? Definitely Only in some areas No way I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. However, for the smallmouth bass already in these Adirondack lakes, removing them less often or only removing a particular subset may be the solution. Doing this might reduce the bass's evolutionary need to adapt, but more research will be needed to determine this. As one researcher said, according to the Cornell Chronicle: "Long-term studies of management efforts are critical, not only for deepening our understanding of natural ecosystems, but also for evaluating the effectiveness of specific management tools." Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet. Solve the daily Crossword
Newsweek
2 days ago
- Newsweek
Smart Speakers Like Alexa and Google Assistant Could Tell if You Have Parkinson's
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A new AI-powered, speech-based screening tool could help people assess whether they are showing signs of Parkinson's disease at home. Developed as part of a study by University of Rochester computer scientists, the web-based test asks users to recite two pangrams, short sentences using every letter of the alphabet. In just seconds, the AI can analyze the voice recordings to look for subtle patterns linked to Parkinson's—with nearly 86 percent accuracy. The researchers believe such a tool could be implemented as a feature in popular speech-based interfaces like Amazon Alexa or Google Home (with users consent). Parkinson's is typically diagnosed by specially trained neurologists through a combination of examinations, brain imaging and family history. While the new tool is not intended to be a replacement for a clinical diagnosis, the researchers see it as a fast, low-barrier and accessible way to flag people who might have the disease and encourage them to seek thorough clinical evaluation. Man connecting Alexa-like device to phone at home. Man connecting Alexa-like device to phone at 1.1 million people in the U.S. are living with Parkinson's disease, expected to rise to 1.2 million by 2030, according to Parkinson's Foundation. Nearly an estimated 90,000 people are diagnosed across the country each year, making it the second-most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's. While incidence increases with age, some four percent of people are diagnosed before 50. "There are huge swaths of the U.S. and across the globe where access to specialized neurological care is limited," said Rochester computer science professor Ehsan Hoque in a statement. "With users' consent, widely used speech-based interfaces like Amazon Alexa or Google Home could potentially help people identify if they need to seek further care." Most people living with Parkinson's in the U.S. seek their care from neurologists, with approximately 50 percent seeing a community neurologist and 9 percent seeing a movement disorders specialist, a previous Parkinson's Foundation study found. However, nearly 40 percent of people with the disease do not see a neurologist for their care but see a primary care provider (29 percent) or no provider (11 percent.) Home speaker device. Home speaker device. fabioderby/Getty Images To train and validate the new tool the researchers collected data from more than 1,300 participants—with and without Parkinson's—across home care settings, clinical settings at the University of Rochester Medical Center and the InMotion Parkinson's disease care center in Ohio. Using their computer's microphone, participants were asked to read aloud the following sentences: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The dog wakes up and follows the fox into the forest, but again the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." By utilizing advanced semi-supervised audio models trained on millions of digital recordings to understand the characteristics of speech, the tool can obtain enough vocal cues from the short sentences to flag warning signs. "For example, the way someone with Parkinson's would utter sounds, pause, breathe, and inadvertently add features of unintelligibility is different in someone without Parkinson's," explained paper author and computer science master's degree student Abdelrahman Abdelkader in a statement. The tool was 85.7 percent accurate when tested, providing a strong indication of whether someone may have Parkinson's, according to the study authors. Woman using Google Nest-like device at home. Woman using Google Nest-like device at well as speech, some people can display signs of Parkinson's through motor movement tasks or facial expressions. Over the past decade, this has led Hoque's lab to pursue algorithms to combine multiple indicators with state-of-the-art results. "Research shows that nearly 89 percent of people with Parkinson's have a deformity in their voice that can be indicative of the disease, making speech a strong starting point for digital screening," said paper author and computer scientist Tariq Adnan in a statement. "By combining this method with assessments of other symptoms, we aim to cover the majority of people through our accessible screening process." An interactive, browser-based demonstration of the lab's three screening tests, including this new speech test, is available to try out at home here. Newsweek has reached out to the study authors for more information. Do you have a health story to share with Newsweek? Do you have a question about Parkinson's? Let us know via health@ References Adnan, T., Abdelkader, A., Liu, Z., Hossain, E., Park, S., Islam, M. S., & Hoque, E. (2025). A novel fusion architecture for detecting Parkinson's Disease using semi-supervised speech embeddings. Npj Parkinson's Disease, 11(1), 176. Pearson, C., Hartzman, A., Munevar, D., Feeney, M., Dolhun, R., Todaro, V., Rosenfeld, S., Willis, A., & Beck, J. C. (2023). Care access and utilization among medicare beneficiaries living with Parkinson's disease. Npj Parkinson's Disease, 9(1), 108.
