Understand The Times, International

March 2 - NASA finds: Mediterranean drought 'worst in 900 years'
Article: Signs Of The Last Times
																																																																																								
																																																																																																																																																A drought that began in 1998 in the eastern Mediterranean � including Israel and the West Bank, Cyprus, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey � is likely the worst of the past nine centuries, according to a study from NASA. The research is part of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration�s work to improve the computer models that simulate climate now and in the future. The results have been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.

																																																																																																																																																In addition to identifying the driest years, the science team discovered patterns in the geographic distribution of droughts that provides a �fingerprint� for identifying the underlying causes. Together, these data show the range of natural variation in Mediterranean drought occurrence that will enable scientists to identify droughts worsened by human-induced global warming.

																																																																																																																																																According to Cook, the range of how extreme wet or dry periods were is quite broad, but the recent drought in the Levant region, from 1998 to 2012, stands out as about 50 percent drier than the driest period in the past 500 years, and 10% to 20% drier than the worst drought of the past 900 years.