"Severe Drought Predicted to Grip the Globe By 2040"

"BOULDER, Colorado -- Global warming will bring on severe and prolonged drought across the United States and many other heavily populated countries within 30 years, finds a new study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Atmospheric scientist Dr. Aiguo Dai, with NCAR's Climate and Global Dynamics Division in Boulder, concludes that warming temperatures associated with climate change will likely create increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years, possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times. "

Environment News Service had the story October 21, 2010.