Climate change may flip the conditions experienced during the 2012 drought from a blip to the new normal. By the middle of the century, projected increases in the number of high temperature stress days would mean typical summer temperatures similar to the summer of 2012. In Lincoln in July of 2012, the average temperature was 97 degrees, 8 degrees above normal.
Ray said there is no doubt that things are changing because of climate change but also wishes there was more information.
“My big thing with it is I do wish that we had more historical data. Of course, that’s not possible because people just weren’t taking data 200 years ago,” he said.
As climate change leads to warmer temperatures, crops will need more water, said Crystal Powers, a research and extension communication specialist at the Nebraska Water Center.
Powers said there are already steep groundwater declines occurring in southwestern Nebraska, similar to the extreme declines in other states that draw from the High Plains Aquifer, like Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. But that’s even before factoring in future climate change.
“It’ll be even more of a concern of how do we keep a long-term sustainable supply of groundwater when we will need to use more water?” Powers said.
Powers cited groundwater scarcity as the biggest concern for the western part of Nebraska, where the climate is already drier.
“In Nebraska, we kind of live in the land of extremes,” she said.