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Published Online April 5, 2007
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1139601

Reports

Submitted on January 5, 2007
Accepted on March 26, 2007

Model Projections of an Imminent Transition to a More Arid Climate in Southwestern North America

Richard Seager 1, Mingfang Ting 1, Isaac Held 2, Yochanan Kushnir 1, Jian Lu 3, Gabriel Vecchi 4, Huei-Ping Huang 1, Nili Harnik 5, Ants Leetmaa 4, Ngar-Cheung Lau 2, Cuihua Li 1, Jennifer Velez 1, Naomi Naik 1

1 Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA.
2 NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, USA; Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
3 National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA. 5Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
4 NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, USA.
5 Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

How anthropogenic climate change will impact hydroclimate in the arid regions of Southwestern North America has implications for the allocation of water resources and the course of regional development. Here we show that there is a broad consensus amongst climate models that this region will dry significantly in the 21st century and that the transition to a more arid climate should already be underway. 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.


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