Climate Central: To understand why the West has been so dry since the turn of the century, cast your eye further west -- to the natural waxing and waning of Pacific Ocean winds.
Strong trade winds have been forcing heat into ocean depths, contributing to a temporary slowdown in land surface warming over the past 15 to 20 years that some have called a warming hiatus, pause or false pause. New research published in the Journal of Climate has gone further -- implicating those winds in stubborn droughts afflicting...