If the current pace of climate change continues, researchers calculate, there is an 80 percent chance that California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kansas will be hit in the second half of the century with a “megadrought” lasting as long as 35 years. A megadrought could create major water shortages for population centers, destroy crops, and lead to huge wildfires. “The future of drought in western North America is likely to be worse than anybody has experienced in the history of the United States,” says Benjamin Cook, the study’s lead author. “These are droughts that are so far beyond our contemporary experience that they are almost impossible to even think about.”