The simulations showed that as a result of rapidly increasing heat-trapping greenhouse gases, the 1-in-100-year 1936 heat wave is, at the very least, now more of a 1-in-40-year event for the Great Plains - meaning a heat wave of that magnitude is now more than twice as likely and could occur twice in the average person's lifetime. This technique suited their particular 1930s heat wave investigation because thousands of simulations could be conducted for each Dust Bowl year. The study used a novel climate model developed at the University of Oxford that does not run on supercomputers, but rather on the personal computers of volunteers from around the world. To arrive at their conclusion, the researchers ran thousands of computer model simulations of the 1930s heat waves, but with atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at today's levels. And the study concludes that climate change may soon bring about the next one: "It is likely that the 1930s records will be broken in the near-future even if there is action to mitigate emissions." The Dust Bowl is an example of an environmental disaster clearly made worse by the unintended consequences of man. A cow forages for food in dust-blown pastures on July 8, 1936, in Ford County, Kansas, where a month of rainless days and soaring temperatures, well above 100 degrees in many areas, ruined pasturage and crops. Wheat production fell by 36% and maize production plummeted by 48% during the 1930s. The heat, drought and dust storms also had a cascade effect on U.S. In total, the Dust Bowl killed around 7,000 people and left 2 million homeless. Some people thought they had been struck blind."Īs the dust storms became larger and more intense, children developed fatal "dust pneumonia" and business owners, already reeling from the Great Depression, were devastated, some driven to suicide and others forced to flee with their families in a mass exodus. We couldn't see our hand in front of our face. The wind was so strong that we heard later it had broken the wind gauges…When it hit, everything became very still and we were enveloped in this terrible blackness. "We could see it rolling toward us at a terrific speed like a prairie fire. On "Black Sunday" in the Oklahoma Panhandle - ApThelmas Bemount Campbell described her terror to author Amy Dee Stephens as a dust storm enveloped her home: When the Dust Bowl hit, day turned into night as biblical dust storms buried parts of roads and buildings, especially in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. The images below show the area covered by the 1936 heat wave, and from top to bottom: the number of days with extreme heat, the length of the longest heat wave stretch, and the hottest temperatures recorded. Temperatures routinely topped 110 degrees Fahrenheit. daily heat records set during that summer and half of such records set during the 1930s. The 1936 heat wave was so extreme it is considered a once-in-100-year event, with 25% of all U.S. "These extremes occurred during a period of multidecadal warming, with early twentieth century global-scale drought likely amplified by greenhouse gases," they write. The authors of the study found that even way back then, emissions had already started to influence the climate. This property was abandoned by its owner when destructive dust clouds forced him to seek his fortune elsewhere. In this Maphoto, the desolation of the Dust Bowl is graphically illustrated by these rippling dunes banked against a fence, farm home, barn and windmill in Guymon, Oklahoma. So when natural climate fluctuations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans led to a streak of years with heat and drought in the Plains, the land not only had no buffer, but actually acted to amplify the disaster. This absence of sound land management led to a feedback loop, where the lack of vegetation and moist soils meant the land no longer had the ability to cool itself through evaporation. To make matters worse, some relatively inexperienced farmers engaged in deep plowing of virgin topsoils and enabled overgrazing. It is estimated that three to four inches of topsoil was blown away during the 1930s. The decimation of native grasslands led to a significant loss of both soil moisture and the ability to keep soil in place.
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