During the 1930s the United States experienced one of the
most devastating
droughts of the last century. The drought affected
almost 2/3 of the
country and parts of Mexico and Canada and was infamous for
the numerous
dust storms that lead to the characterization of much of the
southern Great Plains as the "Dust Bowl". In this talk,
I will
present results from an ensemble of 100-year
simulations with an
atmospheric general circulation model forced with observed
sea surface
temperatures. The simulations indicate that the drought
was caused by anomalous tropical sea surface
temperatures during that
decade and that interactions between the atmosphere and the
land surface
increased its severity. I will also contrast the 1930s
drought with other