Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun climatology A drought lasting for decades or centuries.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

mega- +‎ drought

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Examples

  • Researchers analysed 3,000 years-worth of sediments in Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana, and found that the last such 'megadrought' ended 250 years ago.

    SciDev.Net 2009

  • GEOLOGY includes three papers about Mars: continuation of the “jelly sandwich” versus “crème brûlée” debate; support for the Snowball Earth hypothesis; what nine-million-year-old tooth enamel says about vegetation in an ancient sub-Himalayan ecosystem; anthropogenic lead in the Tyrrhenian Sea; evidence for a prehistoric South Pacific tsunami; a multicentennial megadrought in medieval Europe; and a newly discovered fossil turtle in the Canadian Arctic.

    A Dance to the Music of Life 2009

  • Colorado River streamflow history reveals megadrought before 1490

    May 17th, 2007 2007

  • GEOLOGY includes three papers about Mars: continuation of the “jelly sandwich” versus “crème brûlée” debate; support for the Snowball Earth hypothesis; what nine-million-year-old tooth enamel says about vegetation in an ancient sub-Himalayan ecosystem; anthropogenic lead in the Tyrrhenian Sea; evidence for a prehistoric South Pacific tsunami; a multicentennial megadrought in medieval Europe; and a newly discovered fossil turtle in the Canadian Arctic.

    2009 February « A Dance to the Music of Life 2009

  • I am concerned that the current conditions may herald a megadrought and after that, global cooling and all the ills which would accompany it. mzed

    Fixing the Facts to the Policy « Climate Audit 2007

  • It was the last blast of the most recent past Negative PDO, which gave droughts just shy of the megadrought category during the 50s and the 70s, affecting large swaths of the US.

    Unthreaded #7 « Climate Audit 2007

  • Martin, respectfully: how are you going to sample the stems that did not survive the “megadrought” years?

    More on Positive and Negative Responders « Climate Audit 2007

  • Not to make anyone nervous, but we are overdue for a megadrought.

    More Unthreaded « Climate Audit 2007

  • Lloyd Fig 2 shows peak per capita mortality occurring during the megadrought of AD1150, at a rate of 0.09/50 years.

    Survivorship Bias « Climate Audit 2006

  • "If anything is scary, the scariest is that we could trip across a transition into a megadrought."

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com William deBuys 2011

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