Climate Change and Megadroughts

Genesis 8:22
“While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

Climate change alarmists – those who unquestioningly accept the pseudo-science that suggests human beings are causing a disaster by releasing too much carbon dioxide – have an influence beyond their community, even causing comments in otherwise sound scientific research. And remember, the term they prefer these days is climate change rather than global warming, as the former phrase gets them off the hook if temperatures are seen to decrease.

A recent piece of excellent research from Columbia University looked at the existence of megadroughts in the southwest of the United States over 2,000 years, which suddenly ceased about the year 1600. Such droughts might last a couple of years each. The negative effect on the research is that the authors felt obliged to comment that megadroughts could return to the area because of climate change, by which they meant anthropogenic global warming. The positive side of the research is that, probably for the first time, modern climate scientists are looking at reasons and effects of what is known as the Medieval Warm Period, which would have been at its peak from about 950 AD through 1250 AD. In much recent climate change research, this period was ignored; especially, the MWP did not appear on the infamous “hockey-stick” graph of alleged global warming. It is good to see the MWP acknowledged, as its cause could have had nothing to do with modern industrial issues. Climates constantly change, but God’s hand on climate conditions never ceases.

Prayer: We acknowledge, Lord, that You are sovereign over all things and never taken by surprise. Amen.

Author: Paul F. Taylor

Ref: Earth Institute at Columbia University. “Climate change could revive medieval megadroughts in US Southwest: Study picks apart factors that caused severe, long-lasting droughts and suggests increased risk for future.” ScienceDaily, 24 July 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190724144152.htm>. Image: 1930s dust bowl, Oklahoma. Public domain.