Key facts about the drought that’s reshaping Texas

Summary: Texas agriculture suffers from a severe drought as it exhausts its groundwater. Activists (as usual) blame our burning of fossil fuels. What do scientists say? How severe is the drought? What are its causes? How will this reshape Texas?  {1st of 2 posts today.}

The media overflows with debates asking do you believe in climate change? As with evolution, much of America remains in denial: some on the Right deny that it’s happening now; some on the Left deny that it’s omnipresent in history. Both use science as magicians use their wands, to confused us. But we have reliable sources to guide us. How to find them is the subject of many posts on the FM website,.
Today we look at the Texas drought. The New Republic gives us a well-written example of how not to do it: “Fear in a Handful :Of Dust by Ted Genoways — Excerpt…

Climate change is making the Texas panhandle, birthplace of the state’s iconic Longhorn, too hot and dry to raise beef. What happens to the range when the water runs out? … Soon, environmental activists and reporters {ed: not scientists} began to ask whether “drought” — a temporary weather pattern — was really the right term for what was happening in the state, or whether “desertification” was more appropriate.
… In fact, hydrologists estimate that even with improved rainfall, it could take thousands of years to replenish the groundwater already drawn from the South Plains.
… “If climate change is the real deal,” {Linden Morris} said, “then the human race as we know it is over. And I don’t believe that.”

Climate change is the “real deal”, but someone should tell Morris that few scientists believe we are “over”. Genoways ‘confusing article mixes together several trends, most seriously conflating three important but largely unrelated trends: groundwater depletion, the current drought, and climate change.
Farmers and ranchers have been draining the Ogallala Aquifer (a finite store of water, part of a system underlying about 80% of the High Plains) at an ever-faster rate since the 1940s. The current drought in Texas has further accelerated their pumping. As scientists have warned for generations, at some point we will exhaust this great aquifer network and then the Midwest economy will irrevocably change. Much US agriculture relies on unsustainable methods. It’s a phase in our history, like the California and Alaskan gold rushes. (For more information see this by the USGS; also seen the graph showing depletion levels here.)

But despite his apocalyptic language, Genoways doesn’t show that many climate scientists (let alone a consensus) believe that climate change, natural or anthropogenic, is largely responsible for the Texas drought. Let’s see review the evidence, and see what they say about the Texas drought.

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