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Climate change

Old droughts in New Mexico

Nature volume 470, pages 473–474 (2011)Cite this article

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A long climate record reveals abrupt hydrological variations during past interglacials in southwestern North America. These data set a natural benchmark for detecting human effects on regional climates. See Letter p.518

Southwestern North America is a pretty dry place, and is likely to get drier this century because of anthropogenic climate warming. On page 518 of this issue1, Fawcett et al. provide a climate record from deep in the past that will help in assessing the future hydrological regime for the area.

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Figure 1: An aerial view of Valles Caldera, site of the lake sediments from which Fawcett et al.1 extracted their climate record.

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  1. John (Jack) Williams is in the Department of Geography and Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1695, USA.,

    John Williams

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  1. John Williams
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Correspondence to John Williams.

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Williams, J. Old droughts in New Mexico. Nature 470, 473–474 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/470473a

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