A team of researchers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (Columbia University, New York, USA) has forecasted that the Southwestern United States may well be completely dry by the middle of this century. A combination of human-induced climate change and water demand increase due to population growth will soon transform this region into a desert if nothing is done. This permanent drought is also likely to hit other sub-tropical regions of the globe, such as southern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, as well as some parts of South America.

If these models are correct, the levels of aridity of the recent multiyear drought, or the Dust Bowl and 1950s droughts, will, within the coming years to decades, become the new climatology of the American Southwest.

Source: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory