Are the Great Plains Headed for Another Dust Bowl?
Researchers say atmospheric dust in the region has doubled in the last 20 years, suggesting the increasingly dry region is losing more soil skyward
Buried farm machinery in Dallas, South Dakota during the Dust Bowl in 1936. (United States Department of Agriculture)
By Alex Fox
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
OCTOBER 23, 2020
Anew study shows dust storms have become more common and more severe on the Great Plains, leading some to wonder if the United States is headed for another Dust Bowl, reports Roland Pease for Science. With nearly half the country currently in drought and a winter forecast predicting continued dry weather for many of the afflicted regions, dust storms could become an even bigger threat.
In the 1930s, the Dust Bowl was caused by years of severe drought and featured dust storms up to 1,000 miles long. But the other driving force behind the plumes of dust that ravaged the landscape was the conversion of prairie to agricultural fields on a massive scale—between 1925 and the early 1930s, farmers converted 5.2 million acres of grassland over to farming, reported Sarah Zielinski for Smithsonian magazine in 2012.
Hardy prairie grasses would have likely withstood the drought, but crops covering the newly converted tracts swiftly bit the proverbial dust, which loosened the grip their roots had on the soil. High winds then whipped that loose soil into the huge clouds that blanketed the landscape with dust, including 1935’s Black Sunday which lifted 300,000 tons of the stuff skyward.
Besides blotting out the sun, dust storms strip valuable nutrients from the soils, making the land less productive, and create a significant health hazard at a time when a respiratory illness is sickening people around the world, according to Science.
More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/are-great-plains-headed-another-dust-bowl-180976117/
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Too tired this evening.
Who couldn't use some positive thought right about now?
Thank you.
