Forget changing rain patterns — warmer temperatures alone could bring drought to a third of Earth’s land area by the end of the century. That’s the gist of a

New study from Columbia University’s Earth Observatory: Hotter temperatures will mean more evaporation, drying out the soil and posing a significant risk to global agriculture and food security. Climate Central has the details: Climate models using the so-called business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions scenario, which assumes no effort to curb emissions, found that increased evaporation “not only intensifies drying in areas where precipitation is already reduced, it also drives areas into drought that would otherwise experience little drying or even wetting from precipitation trends alone,” the authors wrote. That would potentially push up to 30 percent of Earth’s land area into drought, compared to the 12 percent precipitation trends alone would affect.

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