It feels like every summer is a drought now, doesn’t it? That every summer, year after year, we hear about wildfires and struggling agriculture and water mandates, all attributed to droughts. This is not all in your head, you’re not misremembering or experiencing déjà vu. It’s been happening for years, and we need to change how we discuss it.
- The Changing Climate
It is undeniable at this point that our world’s climates are changing: summers are hotter; winters are colder; water is scarce and wildfires are plentiful. What hasn’t changed is how we talk about it. We speak like it is temporary.
The term “drought” refers to a period of “abnormally dry weather” that lasts enough time to “cause a serious hydrological imbalance,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Helpfully, NOAA then defines “aridity,” or when a “climate lacks effective, life promoting moisture,” in order to help distinguish the two.
This is where we begin to see a connotative difference. “Aridity” is not temporary, like a drought is. We hear of a drought and breathe a sigh of relief, even in the face of tragedy, for we know it will pass. Some scientists, then, are pushing for media to end the use of the term “drought” when speaking about these tragedies and our ever-changing world.
Instead, we should add a new term to our vocabulary: Aridification.
- Arid v. Desert
Aridification is the process by which a biome or ecoregion becomes arid. For instance, if we take a look at East Central Texas, we will find that the Savanna-Woodland ecoregion falls under the “subhumid subtropical to subhumid warm temperate” climate, according to One Earth. Aridification of East Central Texas would result in that climate moving from a “subhumid,” “temperate” climate to an “arid” one, hence the name.
Similar to this is “desertification,” or the process by which a biome becomes a desert. North Africa is – and has been – experiencing this phenomenon as the changing climate causes the Sahara Desert to further encroach on the south, little by little, year by year. While Texas might not be experiencing desertification – at least, not all of it – we are certainly experiencing aridification.
- Purpose and Impact
Some of you might ask: “Why should this matter? It’s just a word, isn’t it?” And while you’re not technically wrong on the second point, this matters quite a bit. The way we discuss something affects how we think of it. A few is different from several. Awesome is different from fabulous. Drought is different from aridification.
As I mentioned before, the term “drought” refers to a temporary weather imbalance. Contrary to that, “aridification” is a permanent, lasting impact on a climate. It is a long, dangerous process, and it is happening to us all over the world. Changing how we think of our bizarre weather patterns – seeing them not as a temporary shock, like a heat wave or cold font, but as a gradual, permanent upset – just might motivate us to do something about them. This is especially important now, as the United States has pulled out of the Paris Agreement, and we need to act quickly to save what we have and prepare for a brighter future. Hopefully one with less wildfires and electrical, grid-halting freezes.