Australia is facing something pretty scary—a megadrought that could be unlike anything it’s seen before. Scientists say the country’s dry spells are getting longer and more intense, with some areas already suffering from severe water shortages. This megadrought could last for decades, making it harder for farmers to grow crops and putting pressure on wildlife and the environment. It’s all linked to climate change, with rising temperatures making droughts worse. People in Australia are being urged to conserve water and prepare for tough conditions ahead. The big question is: how will the country adapt to this looming crisis? Credit: East Australian Fires: By NASA Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) - https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85664582 Rivers of air: By Original: NOAA アメリカ海洋大気庁, Baba 496 - https://mag.ncep.noaa.gov/model-guidance-model-parameter.php?group=Model%20Guidance&model=gfs&area=asia, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=129527988 ice core: By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Ludovic Brucker, https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/climate-science/core-questions-an-introduction-to-ice-cores/ dark band: By Heidi Roop, National Science Foundation (NSF), https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/climate-science/core-questions-an-introduction-to-ice-cores/ Global surface temperature: By NASA/Visualizations by Lori Perkins, Mark SubbaRao, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1880-_Global_surface_temperature_-_heat_map_animation_-_NASA_SVS.webm 21st Century Temperature: By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center - http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?4110, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:21st_Century_Temperature_and_Precipitation_Scenarios.ogv Hurricanes and Aerosols Simulation: By NASA Goddard / YouTube Transition From La Niña to El Niño: By NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio - NASA/GSFC/AMA/Kathleen Gaeta Greer, KBR Wyle Services, LLC/Jefferson Beck, NASA/GSFC/Greg Shirah, NASA/GSFC/Atousa Saberi, https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14646, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:How_NASA_Sees_the_Shift_from_La_Ni%C3%B1a_to_El_Ni%C3%B1o_(SVS14646).webm Supercomputing the Climate: By NASA Multimedia - https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/?media_id=14621339, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Supercomputing_the_Climate.ogv Tree rings: By James St. John - https://flic.kr/p/21VCQ3o, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83884071 KültepeUnterstadt1: By Klaus-Peter Simon, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24667342 CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0: Black Summer Bushfires: By MDRX, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115430636 Family home destroyed: By Raginginsanity, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85894101 Home & Machinery Shed Destroyed: By Raginginsanity, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85894146 Yanderra Bushfire: By Helitak430, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85436323 Orroral Valley Fire: By Nick-D, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=86379924 Sydney Smoke Haze: By Sardaka, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85717604 Assyrie general en: By Sémhur, Zunkir, Morningstar1814, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=149452559 Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/ Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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00:00A mega-drought might hit Australia soon, and this isn't just about a couple of dry seasons.
00:06We're talking about 20 years of little or no rain.
00:09While Australia could be facing the longest and most devastating drought since official
00:14records began, the rest of the world might struggle to buy bread, flour, or cereals.
00:19Energy prices are likely to spike globally, and neighboring countries like New Zealand,
00:24Indonesia, and Malaysia must be prepared to receive Australians directly affected by the
00:29lack of water.
00:31To truly understand how severe this situation could become, we should first examine past
00:36disasters.
00:38First off, Australia is no stranger to droughts, and this phenomenon can happen across their
00:43entire territory.
00:45From 2017 to 2019, the southeast part of the country went through what they call the tinderbox
00:51drought.
00:53This was a severe bone-dry event where the cooler months saw only about half the usual
00:58rainfall.
00:59Parts of Australia became so dry that wildfires were a constant threat.
01:05Crops failed, and water was scarce.
01:07This drought was also thought to have contributed to the Black Summer fire disaster.
01:12By the end of 2019, bushfires were raging across the country on a scale never seen before,
01:19with people describing them as rivers of lava flowing down from treetops.
01:23The losses were staggering.
01:25The tourist industry alone took a hit of $2.8 billion, and over 7,000 jobs disappeared
01:32as a result of this difficult period.
01:35The tinderbox drought was a big reminder of what Australia might face in the future.
01:40That's why it's so important to understand what happened in the past to get a full picture
01:45of a possible 20-year mega-drought.
01:48But there is one problem.
01:50Even though droughts are relatively common in Australia, the rainfall data available
01:54until today isn't enough for researchers to predict the future.
01:59And our records only go back to around 1900.
02:03So experts decided to study tree rings to uncover missing environmental data.
02:09If you look at a tree stump, you'll notice concentric rings on its surface.
02:13As trees grow, they form new rings, and the thickness of these rings depends on how much
02:18water they get.
02:20During a mega-drought, the rings appear thinner because the trees don't have much water.
02:25Unfortunately, these natural records usually only go back a few hundred years.
02:31And it only tells us about specific local conditions, not the situation across all of
02:36Australia.
02:38So experts turned to computer models to simulate how Earth's climate changed from the year
02:43850 to 2000.
02:46This approach helped them to paint a picture of when mega-droughts might have occurred
02:50in Australia, and how to predict what might happen in the future.
02:55But what they were really interested in was whether the human factor might be making this
02:59scenario worse over the years, and if we are somehow intensifying these dry periods.
03:05So are we to blame for these mega-droughts?
03:08The short answer is, we're not sure yet.
03:12On one hand, dry periods in Australia do seem to last longer than they did before factories
03:17and machines became common.
03:20On the other hand, they don't seem to be getting more intense or happening more often
03:24than before industrial times.
03:26This means a drought lasting 20 years might not be directly linked to human activities.
03:32Actually, this kind of phenomenon is just a normal part of how rainfall changes in Australia
03:37over time.
03:39This is backed up by evidence from ice cores, which suggests that a 39-year drought hit
03:45eastern Australia around 800 years ago.
03:49What makes it all so fascinating is that there isn't just one cause for this phenomenon.
03:53I mean, there is no single mechanism that explains all cases of mega-droughts.
03:59It happens because the right combination of ocean and atmospheric conditions come together,
04:04and you end up with a drought.
04:07But just by random chance, you might have periods where there are 100-year-long droughts.
04:14Despite what many people think, mega-droughts are not geographically isolated.
04:18They have occurred on every continent except Antarctica over the past 2,000 years, and
04:24are often linked to natural events.
04:26For instance, mega-droughts in North America and southwest South America were driven by
04:31El Nino, where the Pacific Ocean near the equator gets warmer than usual, disturbing
04:37normal weather patterns.
04:39They are not rare events either.
04:41In fact, the U.S. Southwest has been experiencing a mega-drought since 2000.
04:46It's being considered the driest period in 1,200 years for the region.
04:51Major reservoirs like Lake Mead and Lake Powell are at low levels, heatwaves are hitting cities
04:57like Phoenix and Las Vegas harder than ever, and wildfires are happening more frequently
05:03as the land gets drier.
05:05Now let's think about the future.
05:07Even though we have a very recent and concrete example from the U.S., research can't exactly
05:12predict how a 20-year mega-drought would play out in Australia.
05:16Usually, such events show up mainly as reduced rainfall and snowfall.
05:22In most areas, the increase in drought risk will be caused by a warmer, more arid atmosphere.
05:28So the ground will probably look parched and cracked, rivers and lakes will likely shrink,
05:34and the sky will be relentlessly clear and blue, with barely a cloud in sight.
05:40Farmers might struggle to grow crops, making grocery prices rise worldwide.
05:45Things like bread, flour, and cereals may become scarcer, as Australia supplies about
05:5013% of global wheat exports.
05:53Coal mines might be affected, as they depend on water for extraction, washing, and processing.
06:00That might drive up power costs for industries around the world, which could be passed on
06:04to consumers, impacting global growth and inflation.
06:08As cities might face water shortages, Australians will likely find new ways to conserve every
06:14drop or maybe move to New Zealand or Southeast Asia.
06:18Now you're probably thinking, when is this big event going to happen?
06:22Honestly, it's really hard to predict exactly.
06:26Mega-droughts can happen every 150 to 1,000 years, but experts think Australia should
06:31be ready for one to happen in the next 10 years or so.
06:35And this possibly should be taken seriously.
06:38This phenomenon has been known to contribute to the collapse of entire civilizations.
06:43Take the Akkadians of Mesopotamia, who built the world's first empire more than 4,000
06:48years ago.
06:50Studies of moisture at the ruins of Akkadian cities suggest that they experienced a massive
06:54drought lasting 300 years, and this may have led to their collapse.
07:00A similar thing happened to the Assyrian Empire, which existed over 2,700 years ago, in what
07:06is now northern Iraq.
07:08For years, it was a real mystery why they left their capital of Nineveh and never returned.
07:14But recent studies of a stalagmite in the Khunaba Cave revealed that the rise and fall
07:19of the empire coincided with a wet period followed by a 125-year-long mega-drought.
07:27Because they were very dependent on seasonal rain for agriculture, this dry period made
07:31their life much harder.
07:33Even though experts now believe they probably left because of the dryness, the question
07:38of where they went is still a mystery.
07:41So yep, mega-droughts may have played a role in the collapse of great civilizations in
07:45the past.
07:47But on the positive side, we've come a long way since then, and recent climate technologies
07:52can help us prepare for events like this.
07:55Now that we know a 20-year mega-drought is very much possible and might happen soon,
08:01Australia has some time to get ready for it.
08:04Developing strong water management plans to mitigate the severe impacts of a mega-drought
08:09is more than necessary, and it's also important to create community support networks to provide
08:15emotional and financial support to people, particularly farmers, who are more affected
08:20directly by this event.
08:22If initiatives like these emerge in the coming years, those 20 years of drought could be
08:27less intense than most people might expect.