How is the paleoclimatic record of drought relevant for understanding or predicting drought today, or in the future?
The North American record of past drought allows researchers to determine what has been the range of natural variability of drought over hundreds if not thousands of years. This long-term perspective is important because although severe droughts have occurred in the twentieth century, a more long-term look at past droughts, when climate conditions appear to have been similar to today, indicates that twentieth century droughts do not represent the possible range of drought variability. The paleoclimatic record of past droughts is a better guide than the instrumental record alone for estimating the magnitude and duration of future droughts. For example, paleoclimatic data suggest that droughts as severe as the 1950s drought have occurred in central North America several times a century over the past 300–400 years, and thus we should expect (and plan for) similar droughts in the future. The paleoclimatic record also indicates that drought of a much greater duration than any in the twentie
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