The West without Water documents the tumultuous climate of the American West over twenty millennia, with tales of past droughts and deluges and predictions about the impacts of future climate change on water resources. Looking at the region's current water crisis from the perspective of its climate history, the authors ask the central question of what is "normal" climate for the West, and whether the relatively benign climate of the past century will continue into the future.The West without Water merges climate and paleoclimate research from a wide variety of sources as it introduces readers to key discoveries in cracking the secrets of the region's climatic past. It demonstrates that extended droughts and catastrophic floods have plagued the West with regularity over the past two millennia and recounts the most disastrous flood in the history of California and the West, which occurred in 1861-62. The authors show that, while the West may have temporarily buffered itself from such harsh climatic swings by creating artificial environments and human landscapes, our modern civilization may be ill-prepared for the future climate changes that are predicted to beset the region. They warn that it is time to face the realities of the past and prepare for a future in which fresh water may be less reliable.

List of IllustrationsForewordPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I. Floods and Droughts in Living Memory1. From Drought to Deluge: "Normal" Climate in the West2. The 1861-1862 Floods: Lessons Lost3. The Great Droughts of the Twentieth Century4. Why Is Climate So Variable in the West?Part II. A Climate History of the American West5. Reading the Past: The Earth's History Books6. From Ice to Fire: Into the Holocene7. The "Long Drought" of the Mid-Holocene8. Ice Returns: The Neoglaciation9. The Great "Medieval Drought"10. The Little Ice Age: Megafloods and Climate Swings11. Why Climate Changes: Cycles and OscillationsPart III. A Growing Water Crisis12. The Hydraulic Era: Salmon and Dams13. Future Climate Change and the American West14. What the Past Tells Us about TomorrowBibliographyIndex