Pirate's Cove

Everybody panic! Something might be happening

The 100th Meridian May Be Shifting Because of Climate Change

The 100th meridian, which bisects the Great Plains and separates the arid western states from the moister eastern states, may be shifting as a result of climate change, new studies say.

The imaginary line, metaphorically “drawn in the dirt” by American geologist and explorer John Wesley Powell in 1878, transects Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas in the United States, and continues up into Canada’s Manitoba.

Powell used the line to try to convince Congress to plan water and land-management districts that crossed state lines based on environmental constraints. His suggestions were met with backlash because legislators feared interstate districts would limit growth. Considering the water issues facing western states today, perhaps legislators should have taken Powell’s theories under consideration.

So he used it to advocate for increased governmental power over land, which means power over people. Huh.

In a second study published in March in the AMS journal, the researchers concluded that the line appears to be moving east, which could have big impacts on farming and other pursuits.

“Adjustment to changing environmental conditions would cause farm size and rangeland area to increase across the plains and percent of cropland under corn to decrease in the northern Plains as the century advances,” the study says.

Appears. May. Is it moving or is it not?

Regardless, it’s always amusing how people who treat Darwin and his hypothesis as a holy figure and holy script, respectively, seem shocked that nature shifts. That things do not stay the same.