Jeffrey J. Lukas

Drought in the Western Great Plains, 1845–56

A sustained mid-nineteenth-century drought in the western Great Plains has been indicated by a tree-ring analysis of trees flanking the western Great Plains, and in tree-ring reconstructions of drought and streamflow for eastern Colorado and the Colorado Front Range. The development of new tree-ring chronologies for the western Great Plains, in combination with existing chronologies, now enables a more detailed assessment of the spatial and temporal characteristics of this drought. The analysis of a set of drought-sensitive tree-ring chronologies ranging from the northwestern Great Plains to central New Mexico indicates a core area of drought from south-central Wyoming to northeastern New Mexico for the years 1845–56. Drought was particularly severe in the years 1845–48, 1851, and 1854–56, contracting and affecting smaller regions in intervening years. The impact of this drought on natural ecosystems and human activities is difficult to gauge because of the paucity of historical documents and the confound...

Present weather and climate: evolving conditions

This chapter assesses weather and climate variability and trends in the Southwest, using observed climate and paleoclimate records. It analyzes the last 100 years of climate variability in comparison to the last 1,000 years, and links the important features of evolving climate conditions to river flow variability in four of the region’s major drainage basins. The chapter closes with an assessment of the monitoring and scientific research needed to increase confidence in understanding when climate episodes, events, and phenomena are attributable to human-caused climate change.