As Earth warms, more 'flash droughts' suck soil, plants dry
A new study finds that climate change is making droughts faster and more furious — and especially one fast-moving kind of drought that can take farmers by surprise
Climate change is making droughts faster and more furious, especially a specific fast-developing heat-driven kind that catch farmers by surprise, a new study found.
The study in Thursday’s journal Science found droughts in general are being triggered faster. But it also showed that a special and particularly nasty sudden kind — called “flash droughts” by experts — is casting an ever bigger crop-killing footprint.
It comes only in the growing season – mostly summer, but also spring and fall – and is insidious because it’s caused not just by the lack of rain or snow that's behind a typical slow-onset drought, hydrologists and meteorologists said.
What happens is the air gets so hot and so dry that it sucks water right out of plants and soil.
