Australia could soon see megadroughts that last for more than 20 years, according to new modelling from The Australian National University (ANU) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes. According to the scientists, the findings paint a worrying picture of future droughts in Australia that are far worse than anything in recent experience. Megadroughts are exceptionally severe, long-lasting and widespread. They can last multiple decades or even centuries. An example of this is the megadrought in the United States' southwestern region that started in the year 2000 and has continued for more than two decades. Co-lead author Dr Georgy Falster, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, said that if a megadrought occurred in Australia today, the consequences would be made even worse because of climate change, as any drought would occur against a backdrop of hotter weather. "The combination of climate change on top of naturally occurring megadroughts that could last for 20 years means that in the future Australia could see droughts that are worse than anything in recent historical experience," Dr Falster said. "We must consider, and prepare for, the possibility that one of these multi-decade megadroughts could occur in the near future. "One of the problems with understanding protracted droughts in Australia is that our climate observations since the 1900s give us only a handful of examples to work with. This isn't representative of the worst-case scenarios that are possible just through natural climate variations. "Thinking about when we might expect to see a 20-year-long drought in the Murray-Darling Basin in southeastern Australia, this varies a lot. We could see a megadrought occur every 150 years or 1,000 years. "In this study, we paid particular attention to the Murray-Darling Basin. As the largest agricultural region of Australia, it's important to know how bad droughts in this region could... |