Australia should prepare for 20-year megadroughts as the climate crisis worsens, study finds

Australia should prepare for 20-year megadroughts as the climate crisis worsens, study finds

Climate modelling by the Australian National University found Australia has experienced megadroughts every 150 to 1,000 years and is due for another

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Australia should prepare for “megadroughts” that last more than 20 years and will worsen due to human-induced global heating, new research has found.

Megadroughts are exceptionally severe periods of below average rainfall that last decades. Climate modelling by the Australian National University, published in the journal of Hydrology and Earth System Sciences last week, found droughts spanning more than two decades have occurred in Australia over the past millennia and reoccur every 150 to 1,000 years, depending on the modelling used.

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