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A Critical Evaluation of the Dust Bowl and its Causes

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 Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Aeolian Research
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aeolia

Review Article

Multiple causes of wind erosion in the Dust Bowl

Jeffrey A. Lee a,⇑, Thomas E. Gill b
a
Department of Geosciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA
b
Department of Geological Sciences and Environmental Science & Engineering Program, University of Texas – El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The Dust Bowl refers to a disaster focused in the Southern Great Plains of North America during the
Received 5 June 2015 1930s, when the region experienced extreme wind erosion. Dry farming techniques increased soil erodi-
Revised 3 September 2015 bility. Drought reduced both soil cohesion, making it more erodible, and land cover, leaving the soil less
Accepted 3 September 2015
protected from wind action. Low crop prices (driven by the Great Depression), extremely poor harvests
Available online 26 September 2015
(driven by drought), and lack of knowledge of regionally-appropriate tillage practices left farmers unable
to implement erosion control on their land. The 1930s drought was severe, but neither unusual in the
Keywords:
region nor extreme in length from a climatological perspective. Sea-surface temperature changes in
Dust Bowl
Wind erosion
the Atlantic and Pacific forced changes in the large-scale atmospheric circulation over North America.
Dust storm The result was persistent, intensifying drought within the Southern Great Plains for multiple years, caus-
Great Plains ing a cascade of desiccation. Increased atmospheric dust and increased frequency of cyclones crossing the
region may also have exacerbated Dust Bowl conditions. The Dust Bowl resulted from the simultaneous
combination of drought and economic depression in a region where farmers had not yet learned effective
land management techniques. Economic recovery, cessation of drought, and implementation of erosion
control programs combined to end the Dust Bowl by the end of the 1930s. Many lessons were learned
from the 1930s Dust Bowl regarding the physical and anthropogenic causes of dust storms and how to
mitigate them. As a result, though dust storms continue on the Southern Great Plains, their severity is
significantly reduced.
Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2. Extent, time span and severity of erosion in the Dust Bowl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3. Settlement of the Great Plains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4. Early dryland farming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5. Economic considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
6. Governmental involvement in erosion control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
7. Climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.1. Drought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.2. Feedbacks between land use and climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
7.3. Weather systems producing dust storms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
8. Recovery and lessons learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
9. Future considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
10. Multiple causes of wind erosion in the dust bowl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: jeff.lee@ttu.edu (J.A. Lee), tegill@utep.edu (T.E. Gill).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aeolia.2015.09.002
1875-9637/Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
16 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36

Two millennia ago, the Roman poet Virgil (2005, p. 7) advised

farmers to ‘‘study the ways of the winds” before farming in a
new land. Farmers on the Great Plains of North America in the
early twentieth century paid dearly for not heeding his advice.
The greatest drought-related natural disaster and the most severe
wind erosion in United States history occurred in the 1930s in the
portion of the Great Plains known as the Dust Bowl. Massive dust
storms (Fig. 1) swept though the region carrying soil thousands of
kilometers to the East Coast and out into the Atlantic Ocean. In
addition to dust, blowing sand covered farm fields (Fig. 2) and
formed into dunes (Fig. 3), reducing the value of the land for agri-
culture. While the focus of this paper is soil erosion by wind, its
causes and its impacts, the story of the Dust Bowl is intertwined
with massive climatic, economic, social, agricultural, and environ-
mental problems happening at the same time (e.g. Bonnifield
(1979), Hurt (1981), Worster (2004), Egan (2006)). We will show
that the scale and scope of the Dust Bowl cannot be well explained
by any single factor alone – that the synergy of multiple natural
and anthropogenic ‘‘extreme events” was necessary to create the
disaster.
Robert Geiger, a newspaper reporter writing on the rural crisis
in the southern Great Plains in the 1930s first used the name ‘‘Dust
Bowl.” The opening line of his series of articles is: ‘‘Three little
words–achingly familiar on a Western farmer’s tongue–rule life
today in the Dust Bowl of the continent–If it rains. . ..” (Geiger,
1935). Geiger described a region with massive soil erosion and dust
storms contributing to the misery of the people in the area.

2. Extent, time span and severity of erosion in the Dust Bowl

There are no clearly defined spatial boundaries of the Dust Bowl

(Porter, 2014; Porter and Finchum, 2009), but two studies done in
the 1930s show its general location (Fig. 4). The rectangles on the
map are counties identified as the ‘‘Core of the Dust Bowl” in an
erosion reconnaissance survey conducted by the United States Soil
Fig. 1. Top: dust storm at Dodge City, Kansas (public domain). Bottom: dust storm Conservation Service (Joel, 1937). The irregular shapes are ‘‘blow
at Lubbock, Texas, 30 May 1938 (Courtesy of the Heritage Club Photography
area boundaries” identified by the Soil Conservation Service for dif-
Collection; Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University).
ferent years in the 1930s (Finnell, 1939). Geiger, the reporter who
introduced the term ‘‘Dust Bowl, ‘‘ described it as ‘‘. . .the western
1. Introduction third of Kansas, Southeastern Colorado, the Oklahoma Panhandle,
the northern two-thirds of the Texas Panhandle and Northeastern
And yet, if the field’s unknown and new to us,
New Mexico” (Geiger, 1935). While the Dust Bowl core region had
Before our plow breaks open the soil at all,
It’s necessary to study the ways of the winds
And the changing ways of the skies, and also to know. . .
What crops will prosper there and what will not.
[The Georgics of Virgil, (29 BC)]

Fig. 2. Farm field near Dalhart, Texas, covered in windblown sand, 4 October 1937, Fig. 3. Barchan dunes on farm fields, Dalhart, Texas, 1937(?). U.S. National Archives
with dunes in the background. (News photo from Chicago Tribune; public domain.). Record Group 114.
 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36 17

2012). Dust storms in the Dust Bowl region also were severe since
the Dust Bowl event, particularly during the 1950s (Hurt, 1979)
and sporadically to the present (e.g. Holliday (1991), Lee et al.
(1993, 2009, 2012), Lee and Tchakerian (1995), Stout and Lee
(2003)). In addition, several studies (Muhs and Maat, 1993; Muhs
and Holliday, 1995; Cordova et al., 2005; Halfen et al., 2012) have
documented periods of localized wind erosion and reactivation of
normally vegetated sand dunes at various locations in the region
over the past few hundred years.

Fig. 4. ‘‘Core” of the Dust Bowl as identified by two contemporary studies (Joel,
1937; Finnell, 1939). See text for details.

the most severe dust storms, wind erosion extended throughout

the Great Plains region of North America (Fig. 5). Gray (1967), for
example, discusses the impact of wind erosion on farms in Alberta
and Saskatchewan, Canada and Low (1984) shows the devastating
effects of dust storms and economic depression in North Dakota. A
New York Times article in 1934 describes dust from the Northern
Great Plains that enveloped the East Coast from Virginia to New
England (Anonymous, 1934). Much of this paper will deal with
phenomena both within and beyond the Dust Bowl region proper.
Likewise, the temporal boundaries of the Dust Bowl are not
clear, although many studies mark the beginning of the Dust Bowl
with the onset of a severe, decade-scale drought in the southern
Great Plains in the early 1930s (e.g. Hurt (1981, p. 3); Tatarko
et al., 2013) (Fig. 6), which quickly was followed by a rapid increase
in frequency and magnitude of dust storms (Fig. 7) (Chepil et al.,
1963). By May 1934, dust from the Plains had fallen out on Wash-
ington, DC, and during the winter of 1935–36 claims were made
that 20 million hectares of land had become ‘‘mobile”
(Heathcote, 1980). A return to more plentiful precipitation in late
1940, combined with the recovering economy, is generally credited
with the ending of the Dust Bowl disaster.
Wind erosion not only extended beyond the spatial boundary of
the Dust Bowl, but was common both before and after the 1930s.
Newspaper reports of dust storms were common in the region dur-
ing the second half of the nineteenth century, as documented by
Malin, 1946a–c, including ‘‘snow-dust falls” in the winter of 1895
dropping Great Plains dust on Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, and
Arkansas (Malin, 1946c). Before agriculture in the region,
Fig. 5. Visual assessment of wind erosion in the United States portion of the Great
especially in the 1850s and 1860s, most blowing dust appeared
Plains by Soil Conservation Service in the mid-1930s. Legend: 1 – very severe wind
to follow prairie fires (Zingg, 1954) – a phenomenon which still erosion, 2 – severe wind erosion, 3 – slight wind erosion, and 4 – little or no wind
is occurring in the remaining grasslands of the region (Stout, erosion. Modified from Thornthwaite (1936).
18 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36
Fig. 6. Annual precipitation for Dodge City, Kansas and Amarillo, Texas showing the 1930s and 1950s droughts. Data from www.crh.noaa.gov/ddc/; www.srh.noaa.gov/ama/.
Fig. 7. Yearly ‘‘Dust Storm Days” at Dodge City, Kansas, 1924–1961. Data from
Chepil et al. (1963). (‘‘Dust Storm” is not defined.).
Malin (1946b) felt that ‘‘. . .both the relative frequency and
severity of the dust storms were grossly misrepresented during
the drought period of the 1930s, and the public and the scientific
world are badly misinformed about the whole subject.” Cunfer
(2005, pp. 143–163, 2008) echoes Malin’s argument that the dust
storms of the 1930s were better publicized but not necessarily
more frequent or more severe than previous decades. The lack of
quantitative data on blowing dust in the nineteenth century makes
it impossible to make detailed comparisons between the 1880s, for
example, and the 1930s. Malin’s (1946a–c) extensive data set on
newspaper articles discussing blowing dust during the nineteenth
century indicates that erosion was common, but such reports may
reflect intense, but localized erosion near or within a town, rather
than region-wide events. This paper is written from the perspec-
tive that blowing dust during the 1930s likely was more severe
than previous times, based largely on the descriptions of the time,
but Malin’s and Cunfer’s point that dust storms were prevalent and
sometimes severe in the region before the 1930s is valid. On the
other hand, Brown (1935) commented that ‘‘. . .several individuals
were interviewed who had lived in western Kansas for more than
 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36
Fig. 8. Days of blowing dust reported by National Weather Service observers, June
1934–February 1935 (a), March 1935 (b), and March 1936 (c). Modified from
Mattice (1935, 1936).
50 years and each one made the statement that never in his expe-
rience or to his knowledge had such severe dust storms occurred in
previous years.” The historical record suggests that the cumulative
impact of wind erosion on human lives and society was much
greater during the 1930s than earlier times. Another piece of evi-
dence that the 1930s were different than previous decades is that
significant wind erosion occurred then on lunettes (small clay-rich
sand dunes on the downwind side of playas) in the region for the
first time in hundreds of years or more (Rich, 2013).
Fig. 8 is a series of maps from the Monthly Weather Review show-
ing the number of days with blowing dust reported by National
Weather Service observers over much of the United States
(Mattice, 1935; Martin, 1936). For the nine month period of June
19
1934–February 1935, the highest values are about forty days
encompassing the region approximately from Midland, Texas, to
Dodge City, Kansas, with another peak of about thirty days in east-
ern South Dakota. For the single month of March, 1935, there were
more than twenty days of blowing dust in southwestern Kansas and
the Panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas. In March, 1936, there were
more than twenty days of dust in the Texas Panhandle and extend-
ing into western Oklahoma. The maps also show that dust blew to
the Atlantic Coast on occasion. Worster (2004) described dustfalls
on ships 500 km offshore and Donarummo et al. (2003) suggest
having found 1930s Great Plains dust in Greenland ice.
There are no systematic quantitative measurements of wind
erosion during the 1930s. Joel (1937) qualitatively evaluated ero-
sion in the core of the Dust Bowl (rectangles in Fig. 4). His team
made a visual assessment of the landscape throughout the region
(Schreiber, 1999). In their scale of erosion, ‘Slight’ is defined as less
than 25% of the A horizon (topsoil) eroded, ‘Moderate’ has 25–75%
of A horizon removed, ‘Severe’ has more than 75% of A horizon or
any part of the B horizon eroded, and ‘Very Severe’ has erosion to
the lower B horizon or lower. For wind deposition, the categories
are: ‘Slight’ (up to 15 cm), ‘Moderate’ (15–30 cm), ‘Severe’
(30–60 cm or dunes up to 1.5 m tall), ‘Very Severe’ (dunes over
1.5 m tall). For the whole area surveyed, 38.4% was classified as
Slight (wind erosion, wind accumulation, or both plus land with
both wind and water erosion), moderate: 42.4%, Severe: 8.1%,
and Very Severe: 1.9%. Joel noted that where both wind and water
erosion were recorded, wind erosion dominated. (Presumably,
Joel’s (1937) survey was part of a larger Soil Conservation Service
assessment of soil erosion, shown in Fig. 5, and we assume that
the categories are the same.)
Wind erosion has occurred on the Great Plains since long before
human occupation. Much of the Plains, including the Dust Bowl
region, is covered with soils derived from wind deposited sedi-
ments (National Research Council, 1952; Holliday, 1987, 1991;
Muhs and Maat, 1993). Loamy soils cover most of the Dust Bowl
region core, though soil textures vary from mostly clay to all sand;
Mollisols (ustalls) and alfisols (ustalfs) are the predominant soil
types (Great Plains Committee, 1936, p. 35; Aandahl, 1972).
3. Settlement of the Great Plains
In the early to mid 1800s, the Great Plains, especially the west-
ern portion, were seen as the ‘‘Great American Desert” and, there-
fore, unsuitable for agriculture (Morris, 1926; Webb, 1931, pp.
152–160). This perception was enhanced by the fact that two of
the main exploration and discovery expeditions of the Plains, led
by Zebulon Pike in 1806–07 and Stephen Long in 1819–20, hap-
pened at the end of extraordinary multiyear droughts (Cook
et al., 2007). By the 1870s, the nomadic Native Americans were
forced onto reservations and millions of bison (Bison bison) were
exterminated. These actions allowed European-Americans to move
into the region. At first, large cattle ranches were established
because non-irrigated agriculture was considered too risky west
of the 100th (or, some felt, the 98th) Meridian (Webb, 1931, pp.
348–366). During the 1870s and 1880s, railroads were built across
the Plains and the railroad companies were given land by the Fed-
eral government as payment (Emmons, 1971, pp. 25–46). These
companies then needed to sell the land and create demand for
their transportation services. Establishing farming in the region
was seen as the most profitable way to accomplish both of these
tasks. Unfortunately, the ‘‘Great American Desert” was not a good
promotional slogan to attract farmers.
A new slogan emerged in the second half of the 1800s for the
Great Plains: ‘‘Rain Follows the Plow.” This pseudoscience revolved
around the idea that establishing farming on the Great Plains
20 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36
Fig. 9. Diagram of wheat plant growing in soil with ‘‘soil mulch” (a) and
‘‘subsurface packing” (b) on farm soils. Modified from Campbell (1907, p. 179).
would bring about a permanent increase in rainfall (Smith, 1947;
Stegner, 1953), and was in favor after multiyear wet periods in
the 1860s and 1870s (Cook et al., 2007). Some argued that planting
trees would increase rainfall because forested regions have more
precipitation than grasslands (Williams, 1989). Others felt that
plowing would release soil moisture to the air and somehow lead
to a permanent increase in rainfall (Smith, 1947). However, rela-
tively wet years in the early 1880s were followed by several years
of drought in the region, and this reduced precipitation hurt the
‘‘Rain Follows the Plow” theory (Smith, 1947). It became clear that
farmers on the Plains would have to adapt to the semi-arid climate
and the ‘‘Dry Farming” movement was begun (Wishart, 2013).
4. Early dryland farming
Dryland (or dry) farming is non-irrigated agriculture in arid and
semi-arid regions using practices designed to maximize the use of
available water. By the 1880s, much was learned about farming in
the dry North American West by settlers in Utah, Montana, Califor-
nia, Washington, Colorado and Kansas (Hargreaves, 1948) and on
the Canadian Prairies (Russell, 2007). But the dry farming tech-
niques applied to the Great Plains in the early 20th century were
mostly associated with ‘‘The Campbell Method” developed and
marketed by Hardy Campbell starting in the 1890s (Campbell,
1907 and later editions). Campbell determined that deep water
could be drawn to the root zone by capillary rise if the soil was
packed tightly about 0.1 m below the surface, a process known as
‘subsurface packing.’ But at the same time, evaporation had to be
minimized by the creation of a ‘soil mulch,’ a layer of loose soil at
the surface (Fig. 9). Campbell acknowledged that loose soil on the
surface was subject to wind erosion and he cautioned against mak-
ing the soil mulch too fine, both to minimize evaporation and to
reduce blowing. In Campbell’s (1907, p. 250) words, ‘‘. . .this mulch
should be composed of soil ranging from the size of a pin head to
that of a walnut.” Rain compacts the soil mulch, so tilling must be
done frequently to rebuild it (Campbell, 1907; Hargreaves, 1957).
That the soil mulch also was referred to as the ‘‘dust mulch” (Free
and Westgate, 1910, p. 10) suggests that maintaining soil aggre-
gates on the surface proved difficult for many farmers.
Campbell was hired by railroad companies to run experimental
farms on the Plains and to promote dry farming to prospective
farmers. On these farms he showed how his methods allowed for
successful agriculture in semi-arid regions. He was not the only
promoter of dryland farming at work in the region, but he was
the best known and most successful (Hargreaves, 1948, 1957).
Campbell influenced two precursors to the extreme wind ero-
sion of the Dust Bowl. One is the accelerated spread of agriculture
on the western portion of the Plains in the early decades of the
twentieth century, which were anomalously wet (Fye et al.,
2003), as farmers became convinced that they could successfully
farm without irrigation (Glantz, 1990). The second is the adoption
of his soil management techniques, especially the soil mulch. Loose
soil, when subjected to the force of the wind, erodes easily. Before
the 1930s, erosion was considered a problem in the region, but
conserving soil moisture was a much more serious issue for
farmers and erosion control was of secondary importance
(Phillips, 1999).
Some experts understood the effect of dry farming on soil char-
acteristics and erosion. Agricultural scientist Ten Eyck (1900, pp.
541), for example, commented that:
When the wild prairie is first broken, the soil is mellow, moist
and rich, producing abundant crops. After a few years of contin-
uous cropping and cultivation, the physical condition of the soil
changes...it dries out quicker than it used to. . .. After a soil has
been cultivated and cropped for a long time, it tends to run
together and is very sticky when wet, but when dry, the adhe-
sive character disappears almost entirely. The grass roots which
formerly held it together are decayed and gone, and now when
loosened by the plow it is easily drifted and blown away.
Likewise, Free and Westgate (1910, pp. 10) commented on the
danger of dust mulching for soil erosion:
The recent rapid development of so-called dry farming and the
use therewith of the dust mulch have caused a great increase of
wind damage. The use of such a mulch means the complete
exposure of large areas to the wind for months at a time. This
difficulty can be met by maintaining (when the physical nature
of the soil will allow) a mulch of small clods instead of fine dust.
In spite of this knowledge, farmers understandably focused on
water conservation far more than wind erosion and used the soil
mulch extensively (Baumhardt, 2003).
Campbell had a large influence on farming practices in the
Plains, but it is wrong to think that farmers simply used his meth-
ods unthinkingly. Over time, farmers adapted tillage practices to fit
local conditions. McDonald (1938), for example, commented
that ‘‘[c]ertain of Campbell’s methods continued to be used [in
Oklahoma], but dry farming in its entirety gradually went out of
practice. It was broken down into its component parts, each of
which received individual attention and was considered in relation
to the needs of specific climatic or soil types.”
But farmers still were creating a layer of fine material on the soil
surface during the 1930s by a combination of tillage practices and
a lack of moisture to maintain soil structure. Parkinson (1936, pp.
128) reported that:
[f]armers were pulverizing the earth by plowing, disking and
harrowing, preparatory to spring planting, and since a great
portion of this area is sown to winter wheat and little snow
cover existed during the winter months, drying of the soil was
well advanced by March.
Choun (1936, pp. 197–198) commented that:
Two years ago, the topsoil that blew in these regions was coar-
sely granular in structure; but due to its having been sifted back
and forth, it is now as fine as face powder, and erodes at a lower
wind velocity. This condition is especially noticeable in the Clo-
vis, [New Mexico] area.. . . A seeder operates to pulverize and
level off the top soil, thereby making it more susceptible to
blowing and to the action of the full force of the wind. Most
of the land that had been in continuous cultivation for several
(5 or 6) years lost considerable topsoil.
 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36
Fig. 10. One-way disk plow (a) and two-row lister (b); from Chilcott (1937, pp. 3,
11). Listing a field to reduce erosion, Liberal, Kansas 1936 (c); photo: Arthur
Rothstein, U.S. Farm Security Administration.
And Joel (1937, p. 22) states that ‘‘. . .the general tendency is
toward the production of single grains or small-sized aggregates
under conditions of removal of organic matter, cultivation, or other
disturbance such as stock trampling. In this fine state, and when
dry, the soil is extremely susceptible to removal by wind.” These
quotes suggest that loose soil on the surface was common at the
time, but they provide insufficient evidence that all farmers were
actively producing dust mulches.
Large-scale farming began in the Dust Bowl region in the late
1910s and the 1920s. There was, therefore, insufficient time for
farmers in the 1930s to have learned which tillage practices and
equipment were best suited to the region for soil conservation.
As Chilcott (1937, pp. 2) said, ‘‘[t]illage and cropping practices for
this new country were not well understood. There was no long per-
iod of experience on which to base wise practice. . .. Practices
developed that favored soil blowing.” And when the ample rainfall
21
of the 1920s was followed by the drought of the 1930s, regional
dust storms became common. During the 1920s, the one-way disk
plow was widely used to break the soil as it was faster and easier to
use than the lister, which had been used earlier in the century.
However, the one-way disk plow also was effective at creating
the dust mulch (Fig. 10a and b). Also commonly used were the disk
harrow and spike-tooth harrow, which also pulverized the soil sur-
face. By 1934, though, erosion control became a higher priority for
farmers and they began using listers again, as they are more effec-
tive at roughening the surface and creating surface clods (Fryrear
and Skidmore, 1985) (Fig. 10c). Field cultivators with duckfoot
shovels and rotary rod weeders also were found to reduce erosion
(Mathews, 1945). Of course, erosion control is only one of many
factors in choosing tillage equipment, others include cost, avail-
ability, crop needs, and weed control (Chilcott, 1937; Hurt, 1977,
1981). Lyles (1985, pp. 208–209) outlines the technological limita-
tions farmers faced in the Dust Bowl years:
I do not know, however, whether it was feasible for most farm-
ers to apply control practices. The use of the moldboard plow or
lister made maintenance of crop residue impossible; the one-
way plow (disk) was better but not effective after several oper-
ations, especially in a crop-fallow system. The rod-weeder, as a
secondary tillage tool, would have been a good choice to con-
serve crop residue but was not owned by many farmers. . ..
The main practices available for use by farmers in the 1930s
were production of non-erodible clods and roughening the land
surface. . . .. They may provide temporary control but seldom are
dependable as the only control measure. Unfortunately, they
fail more often under droughty conditions and, most frequently,
on the more susceptible sandy soils. Consequently, Plains farm-
ers did not apply adequate control methods and were almost
overwhelmed by the drought, depression and dust.
So, the only practical means available to most farmers, creation
of surface aggregates, was of limited effectiveness, especially under
the climatic and economic situations faced by farmers at the time.
5. Economic considerations
Soil erosion on agricultural lands is affected by economic condi-
tions and in the 1930s many farmers were in dire financial straits.
The Great Depression happened at this time, affecting national and
global economies (e.g. Temin (2000)).
Large scale agriculture expanded greatly in the western Great
Plains in the 1920s for three reasons, two of them economic. One
was rainfall consistently above normal. The second was crop prices
high enough for profitable farming. The third reason was the intro-
duction of mechanized implements, such as tractors and combines,
which were ideally suited to large, flat and open fields, making the
Plains the most economical region in the United States for growing
wheat, grain sorghums, and cotton. In Stephens’s (1937) words, ‘‘It
was the concurrent happening of this triumvirate of favorable
forces in the 1920s, any one of which would have caused notable
expansion of cultivated land in this area that set the stage for the
aggravated situation in the [1930s] drought.”
Fig. 11a shows that prices for wheat, the main crop in the Dust
Bowl region, were high in the late 1910s, due to the First World
War, dropped in the 1920s as production increased, and reached
a minimum in the early 1930s as the national economy crashed.
Wheat prices then increased as the economy slowly recovered in
the 1930s (with a secondary recession in the late 1930s) and con-
tinued to increase during and after the Second World War in the
1940s.
In addition to low crop prices in the 1930s, farmers in the Dust
Bowl had poor harvests mostly due to the drought, but also caused
22 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36

Fig. 11. Economic data for wheat, the most common crop in the Dust Bowl region. (a) shows the price of wheat (all kinds) in the United States, both raw price and price
adjusted for inflation. [Price data from United States National Agricultural Statistics Service (www.nass.usda.gov/QuickStats/); adjustment for inflation using United States
Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator (www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm). $1 per bushel  $36 per 1000 kg.] (b) is area of wheat planted and harvested in
Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas (entire states) and (c) is percent of planted area harvested. (d) is average yield in Dust Bowl states (Data from:
www.nass.usda.gov/QuickStats/;1 kg/ha0.09 bushel/acre).

by sandblasting of crops and by infestations of rabbits and
grasshoppers (Knight, 2003; Egan, 2006). A possible additional fac-
tor is reduced fertility of the soil as organic matter and nutrients
were eroded with the silts and clays that blew out of the region
(Kimmel, 1938). Fig. 11b and c shows that while the area planted
to wheat increased in the 1920s and 1930s, crop failure was com-
mon, with as little as one half of the land planted actually har-
vested. In addition, the land harvested can be assumed to have
had low yields. Fig. 11d shows that wheat yields in the Dust Bowl
states were lowest during the 1930s. The data in Fig. 11 are for the
entire states and it can be assumed that the conditions were worse
in the Dust Bowl region proper. The effect of the 1950s drought on
crop failure is also reflected in Fig. 11.
The problems of low income from crops were exacerbated by
two related economic trends happening in the Great Plains. Begin-
ning in the 1910s, farm size increased (Eastwood et al., 2010) and
after the end of World War I, there was a transition from animal to
mechanical power in the region (Drache, 1977). While tractors
reduced labor costs and allowed a farmer to work more land, the
higher capital costs resulted in mortgages on farms. Payments on
mortgages became increasingly difficult during the Great Depres-
sion of the 1930s (Grant, 2002, pp. 1–35). The Federal government
became involved in farm credit during 1910s, making mortgages
easier to obtain for both land purchases and farm equipment
(Gregg, 2015).
Tilling fields to reduce wind erosion costs money for fuel and
equipment maintenance. Heavy debt loads and little income dur-
ing an extreme drought and an economic depression made manag-
ing ever-larger fields more difficult for most farmers, representing
a synergy between natural and human factors (Orlove, 2005). On
the other hand, Hansen and Libecap (2004) argue that most farms
in the Great Plains were too small to be economically efficient and
less likely to allow parts of their land to go fallow or invest in ero-
sion control than larger farms could.
 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36 23

Finnell (1939, p. 46) described the impact of economic factors

on wind erosion:
These ill effects of wind erosion, coupled with a generally poor
market, resulted in a rapid depletion of the small financial
reserve of the average farmer necessitating mortgaging of prop-
erty and ultimately, in many cases, forcing him into bankruptcy.
The financial and physical distress accompanying severe wind
erosion induced many farmers to move elsewhere, and the
abandoned farms in most instances were not taken over by
operators. This abandonment further aggravated the erosion
condition since fields were often left in a barren state with no
provision for such control as had formerly been provided by til-
lage operations and the residues from the meager crops that
had been produced.

During the 1930s, much blame for wind erosion was placed on
‘‘suitcase farmers” who farmed in the Dust Bowl but lived far from
their fields (e.g. Malin (1946c)). These farmers, mostly in Kansas
and Colorado, typically planted and harvested their crops, but
spent little or no time in between at their fields. Due to the low
costs of both time and money, this highly speculative form of farm-
ing was profitable during wet years and not economically devastat-
ing during dry years. During drought years, suitcase farmers did
not perform emergency tillage to reduce erosion, and wind erosion
was high. Hewes (1973, pp. 161–174), however, concluded that
there is little evidence that suitcase farmer’s land blew signifi-
cantly more than land farmed by residents during the Dust Bowl
years.

6. Governmental involvement in erosion control

Franklin Roosevelt became president of the United States in

1933 and his ‘‘New Deal” to bring the country out of the Great
Depression included soil conservation programs related to the Dust
Bowl. The Soil Erosion Service (SES) was established in 1933 within
the Department of the Interior and was reorganized as the Soil
Conservation Service (SCS) in the Department of Agriculture in

Fig. 13. U.S. Forest Service map of major planting areas of the Prairie States Forestry
Project, 1935–1942 and National Grasslands in the Dust Bowl region. Shelterbelt
areas redrawn from Williams (2005); grasslands redrawn from Hurt (1985).

1935 (and re-named the Natural Resources Conservation Service

Fig. 12. Above: rainwater in furrows after contour listing to promote infiltration.
From Chilcott (1937, p. 7). Below: example of strip cropping. From Kansas State
Board of Agriculture (1937, p. 36).
in 1994). Hugh Hammond Bennett, known as the ‘‘Father of Soil
Conservation” in the United States, led both the SES and SCS
(Helms, 2009, 2010). Demonstration projects were established on
private farms in the region to experiment with erosion control
methods and to show farmers the best practices to reduce soil
blowing (e.g. Finnell (1939)). Contour plowing and terracing were
promoted to increase moisture retention, along with strip cropping
(Fig. 12) to reduce wind speeds near the surface. Beginning in
1935, the Federal government began paying farmers in the Dust
Bowl to till their fields for erosion control; farmers who could
afford it performed emergency tillage without government sup-
port. Listers were the primary tool used to roughen the surface
and the procedure needed to be repeated every week or so during
the ‘‘blow months” of winter and spring. (Hurt, 1981, pp. 69–82)
The SCS also worked to restore grass cover to grazing lands and
this program led to the establishment of National Grasslands (Hurt,
24 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36
1985) (Fig. 13). The Federal government purchased highly erodible
land in areas determined to be submarginal for farming. Most of
the land was bought in the late 1930s and early 1940s and was a
mix of crop and range land. Of the 235,000 hectares bought, most
was abandoned or idle at the time of purchase and only about
seven percent was occupied by the owner of the land. These lands
were revegetated and, eventually, leased to ranchers for grazing.
(Hurt, 1985; Lewis, 1989) However, Sylvester and Rupley (2012)
analyzed patterns of land purchase in Kansas during the 1930s
and concluded that, based on soils data, most of the farmland
bought by the government was not marginal, at least by today’s
definitions of marginal land.
At the urging of the Federal government, states established
‘‘conservation districts,” where local farmers worked together to
combat erosion and district supervisors coordinated the efforts.
Kansas and Texas allowed the districts to perform emergency til-
lage on private land that was damaging neighboring property
and bill the landowner for the cost of the work (Hurt, 1981, pp.
74–75; Hansen and Libecap, 2004).
Another New Deal project came directly from President
Roosevelt, who had a personal interest in forestry (Owen, 1983).
The Prairie States Forestry Project, also known as the Shelterbelt
Project, initiated in 1934, involved planting rows of trees to reduce
wind speed at ground level (Dahl, 1940; Rodgers, 2001). While
early discussions of the project involved planting trees throughout
the Great Plains, climate and soils limited the extent of the plant-
ings, with the drier western portion, including much of the Dust
Bowl region, unsuitable for vast numbers of unirrigated trees
(Albertson and Weaver, 1945) (Fig. 13). Where they existed, shel-
terbelts were beneficial in reducing erosion and evaporation, but
landowners removed many, starting in the 1950s. This was done
mainly to put the land back into agricultural production and the
farmers relied on other erosion control techniques (Lang, 1970;
Droze, 1977; Hurt, 1981, pp. 121–137). In terms of the impact of
shelterbelts in combating wind erosion in the 1930s, Lyles (1985,
pp. 208) commented that
Although windbreaks to reduce field width are effective if cor-
rectly spaced and oriented, they are difficult to establish in
the drier parts of the Plains and years pass before they grow suf-
ficiently tall to give protection. Therefore, they would not have
met immediate, short-term needs of the Dust Bowl years.
Fig. 14. Map of PDSI for the United States in August 1934, modified from NOAA.
Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/drought/historical-palmers.
php.
Despite the credit the Prairie States Forestry Project has
received in ending the Dust Bowl, windbreak plantings under
the Project did not begin on a large scale until 1936.
The most effective government programs to reduce wind ero-
sion in the Dust Bowl region, then, involved research and education
on best practices for managing farmland, providing money to the
neediest farmers to help control erosion, buying large amounts of
erodible land and returning it to grassland, and encouraging the
formation of local conservation districts. Shelterbelts had little
effect in the Dust Bowl region in the 1930s. They were effective
in wetter parts of the Great Plains, but after the 1930s.
7. Climate
The Dust Bowl sometimes is considered solely as a drought or as
an environmental disaster caused exclusively by the drought (e.g.
Schubert et al. (2004)). While the extreme wind erosion during
the 1930s was strongly exacerbated by drought, and drought was
a primary cause of the Dust Bowl (Cunfer, 2005), land management
and the economy were important factors as well.
7.1. Drought
The 1930s drought, at its most extreme, seriously affected
approximately two-thirds of the United States and parts of Canada
(Felch, 1978), as shown in Fig. 14. This drought was preceded by an
equally extreme wet episode. Tree ring studies suggest that the
period from 1905 to 1917 was one of the longest and most wide-
spread wet periods of the past 500 years in the western portion
of North America (Fye et al., 2003), though Fig. 6 suggests that in
the Dust Bowl region itself, this was not an extremely wet period.
The decade of the 1920s, however, was relatively wet in the Dust
Bowl and elsewhere, doubtlessly misleading new farmers on the
Great Plains as to the region’s prevailing climate, appropriate land
use practices, and what land was sustainably arable.
Fig. 15 shows the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) for the
Dust Bowl region in the 1930s and Table 1 shows the duration of
drought periods in both the 1930s and 1950s. PDSI is an approxi-
mation of soil moisture relative to ‘‘normal” conditions, using
meteorological data and assumptions about soil properties
(Palmer, 1965), here calculated for climate ‘‘divisions” in each
state. ‘‘Drought” is here defined as starting the first month when
PDSI is less than 1 for three or more months and ending the
month before PDSI is greater than 1 for two or more months.
Drought started first in southeastern Colorado, in August 1931, fol-
lowed by southwestern Kansas in August 1932 and the Oklahoma
Panhandle in September 1932. Northeastern New Mexico began
the drought in April 1933 and northwestern Texas in June 1933.
Continuous drought occurred in the Dust Bowl portions of Kansas
and Oklahoma until the autumn of 1940, lasting 99 and 97 months,
respectively, although other parts of the Dust Bowl region did
experience breaks. New Mexico was out of drought conditions
from September 1938 to June 1939 as was Colorado for the sum-
mer of 1933 and from December 1937 to May 1939. The Texas por-
tion of the Dust Bowl was out of drought from September 1936 to
July 1938 and January to April 1939. A PDSI value less than 4 is
considered ‘‘extreme drought,” and all regions had many months
in that category, all experiencing PDSI less than 5 for at least
one month. The 1930s drought ended in 1940: Colorado in January,
Oklahoma in October, and November in the other regions. For the
entire Dust Bowl region, the drought was most severe in 1934 and
1935 and more variable at other times. This analysis is for region-
ally averaged PDSI, so drought at specific locations likely was dif-
ferent than described here. Cook et al. (2014b) describe 1934 as
‘‘the single most extensive and intensive year of extreme drought
 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36 25

Fig. 15. Monthly values of the Palmer Drought Severity Index for Dust Bowl ‘‘climate regions” for the 1930s. PDSI values defined in Fig. 14. Data from www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/
CDO/CDODivisionalSelect.jsp#. Climate region data source: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/usclimdivs/boundaries.html.

Table 1 The record of PDSI since 1895 is shown in Fig. 16. The two lar-
Duration of drought conditions in the Dust Bowl Region in the 1930s and 1950s. gest multi-year droughts of the twentieth century in the region
Regions shown in Fig. 17. occurred in the 1930s and 1950s. The two were roughly compara-
Region Start End Duration (months) Minimum PDSI ble in overall intensity and duration, except in New Mexico and
Texas, where the 1950s drought was longer and, in Texas, drier.
New Mexico Apr-33 Apr-37 49 5.08 (Sep-34)
Aug-37 Aug-38 13 2.34 (Aug-38) The 1950s drought lasted for 76 months in the Dust Bowl portion
Jul-39 Nov-39 5 1.96 (Oct-39) of Texas, 67 months in New Mexico, 58 months in Colorado,
Jul-40 Oct-40 4 3.09 (Oct-40) 57 months in Oklahoma, and 56 months in Kansas (Table 1). The
Aug-51 Feb-57 67 4.9 (Sep-56) 1930s drought, however, covered a larger area of North America
Colorado Aug-31 Jun-33 24 3.38 (Feb-33) at its peak (Cook et al., 2007), and was accompanied by warmer
Sep-33 Nov-37 51 5.63 (Feb-35) temperatures (Donat et al., 2015).
Jun-39 Dec-39 7 3.19 (Sep-39)
Oct-49 Aug-51 23 3.92 (May-50)
Recent studies have put the severity of the 1930s drought in
May-52 Feb-57 58 5.34 (Sep-56) perspective over a longer time scale (Woodhouse and Overpeck,
Kansas Aug-32 Oct-40 99 5.41 (Aug-37)
1998; Cook et al., 2007; Herweijer et al., 2007; Seager et al.,
Mar-50 Jun-50 4 2.48 (Jun-50) 2008; Burnette and Stahle, 2013). Within the past one thousand
Jul-52 Feb-57 56 5.98 (Sep-56) years, four ‘‘megadroughts” occurred in the western United States,
Oklahoma Sep-32 Sep-40 97 5.91 (Jul-36) including the Dust Bowl core region, each lasting for decades and
May-52 Jan-57 57 6.04 (Sep-56) far more extreme than the 1930s event (Cook et al., 2004, 2010;
Texas Jun-33 Aug-36 39 5.01 (Oct-34) Stahle et al., 2007; Oglesby et al., 2012; Williams et al., 2013) These
Aug-38 Dec-38 5 1.94 (Dec-38) happened from approximately 1276 to 1299, 1387 to 1402, 1444 to
May-39 Oct-40 18 3.21 (Oct-40) 1481, and 1571 to 1586 (Stahle et al., 2007; Cook et al., 2007). In
Jan-50 May-50 5 2.27 (May-50)
addition, general trends over centuries can be discerned. According
Nov-50 Feb-57 76 5.86 (Sep-56)
to Cook et al. (2004), from 900 to 1300 AD, dry conditions were
common after which wetter conditions, though interrupted by
the 16th-century megadrought, lasted until about the beginning
in (Western North America) during the last thousand years, of the Dust Bowl drought. A trend toward generally increasing
helping to transform the persistent Dust Bowl drought into a aridity over western North America characterizes the period since
national environmental, social, and economic crisis.” As shown in the end of the Dust Bowl (e.g. Mauget (2003a), Seager et al. (2007),
Table 1, however, within the Dust Bowl region the 1950s drought Cook et al. (2004, 2007)).
overall was comparable in severity and more continuous in dura- Focusing on the Dust Bowl region itself, Fig. 17 shows PDSI from
tion than the drought of the 1930s. 1000 to 2000 AD (Cook et al., 1999, 2004). More detailed analysis of
26 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36

Fig. 16. Monthly PDSI for ‘‘climate regions” in the Dust Bowl from 1890s to 2010s. Data from www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/CDO/CDODivisionalSelect.jsp#.

this small part of a continental dataset of estimated values is likely
not warranted, but the graphs suggest that the 1930s drought was
not a particularly severe one on a millennial scale, especially
compared to the multi-decadal megadroughts such as the one
beginning approximately in 1440.
On a still longer time perspective, DeMenocal (2001) and Booth
et al. (2006) found that ‘‘megadroughts” in central and southwest-
ern North America occurred roughly four times per millennium in
the late Holocene. Forman et al. (2001) identified numerous times
in the Holocene with dune erosion in the Plains that exceeded Dust
Bowl era intensity, with the Southern High Plains showing peak
aeolian activity sometime between about seven and five thousand
years ago. Booth et al. (2005) documented a severe,
continental- and centennial-scale drought in the mid-Holocene
about 4200 years ago.
Booth et al. (2006) hypothesized that these Holocene mega-
droughts were associated with unusually warm North Atlantic
and cold tropical Pacific conditions generally consistent with the
sea surface temperature patterns associated with the Dust Bowl
drought and modern droughts in the region, as discussed below.
Regardless of its relative severity, the Dust Bowl drought con-
tributed to massive dust storms and human misery. On the other
 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36 27

Fig. 17. Five year moving average of Palmer Drought Severity Index values for grid point centered in Southeastern Colorado (37.5°N 102.5°W), within the Dust Bowl region for
years 1000–2000 AD. The values are part of a data set reconstructed from tree ring records for North America (Cook et al., 1999, 2004). Source: http://www.ncdc.
noaa.gov/paleo/pdsidata.html.

Fig. 18. External ocean–atmosphere connections (outside of shaded box) and meteorological and land-surface effects and feedbacks within the southern Great Plains (within
shaded box) comprising key climatic forcings contributing to the Dust Bowl drought and wind erosion. Modified from Bronniman et al. (2009, Fig. S4), and synthesizing
information from Donat et al. (2015), Schubert et al. (2004), Seager et al. (2008) and other references cited in Section 7.

hand, the drought of the 1950s was longer and more severe
(Andreadis et al., 2005), at least in the southern portion of the Dust
Bowl region (McGregor, 2015), yet its human toll was much less
devastating than in the 1930s.
Progress also has been made on determining the large-scale
climatic conditions that are associated with drought in central
North America (e.g. Shin et al. (2010), Cook et al. (2011a,b, 2013),
Nigam et al. (2011), Feng et al. (2011), Oglesby et al. (2012),
Seager and Hoerling (2014)). Borchert (1971) originally suggested
that the Dust Bowl drought was associated with large-scale
changes in atmospheric circulation, and recent numerical
modeling efforts have largely confirmed this hypothesis
28 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36
(e.g. Brönnimann et al. (2009), McCrary and Randall (2010), Cook
et al. (2011a,b), Oglesby et al. (2012)), although some studies have
suggested that the overall 1930s drought (Hoerling et al., 2009) or
1934 (the most intense drought year) (Cook et al., 2014b) could be
explained as a consequence of natural variability in the region,
without major changes to global atmospheric patterns.
The Dust Bowl drought has been associated with a combination
of global and regional oceanic and atmospheric phenomena that
impacted climate, weather and land-surface properties within
the North American Great Plains. These comprised a complex inter-
play of oceanic heat anomalies influencing the positions of atmo-
spheric high and low pressure systems, which in turn led to
changing paths of wind systems and movements of air masses
and atmospheric moisture. They cascaded down to complex inter-
actions between soil moisture, vegetation cover, atmospheric tem-
perature and precipitation in the Plains – all eventually
manifesting in increased wind erosion. Many papers have been
written about these interplaying factors: we attempt to summarize
and explain the key ones below, and visualize them in Fig. 18.
Rossby waves are planetary-scale waves in the atmosphere that
shape its general circulation. They affect the locations of synoptic-
scale phenomena such as air pressure systems and cyclonic storm
paths. Sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
affect these large-scale atmospheric patterns. During the 1930s,
the tropical Atlantic was warmer than average and the western
North Atlantic was much warmer than average. At the same time,
the tropical Central Pacific was cool while the far Northeast Pacific
was warmer than average. These conditions led to the Great Plains
Ridge, a high pressure system, dominating the region. Precipitation
requires rising air but air sinks under high pressure, creating a
‘stable’ atmosphere. Sea surface temperature conditions in the
Atlantic also affect the location of the Bermuda High pressure sys-
tem and it, along with pressure systems on land and in the Pacific,
affects the path and intensity of the ‘‘Great Plains Low Level Jet,”
the flow of humid air from the Gulf of Mexico that under normal
conditions provides most of the water for precipitation in the
southern Great Plains, especially during the warm season. With
stable air and less moisture in the atmosphere, there is less precip-
itation. There also is less moisture in the atmosphere due to the
conversion of grassland to agriculture, resulting in less soil mois-
ture to evaporate or to be transpired by plants. Reduced soil mois-
ture and managing the land for farming leaves less vegetation that,
in turn, allows for more wind erosion. Wind erosion results in the
loss of soil nutrients, lowering soil fertility resulting in still less
vegetation. Dust in the lower atmosphere reflects sunlight and
makes the atmosphere even more stable. The result is a cascade
of positive feedbacks promoting dryer conditions and more ero-
sion. A more detailed explanation of the current understanding
of the Dust Bowl drought follows.
Globally, warmer than average sea surface temperatures in the
subtropical and tropical North Atlantic, a particularly warm North
Atlantic, colder-than-average western/central Pacific, and warming
in parts of the northeast Pacific all tend to contribute to drought in
central and southwestern North America (Woodhouse and
Overpeck, 1998; Fye et al., 2004; McCabe et al., 2004; Schubert
et al., 2004; Zhang and Mann, 2005; Booth et al., 2005, 2006; Cook
et al.,2007, 2010, 2011a, 2011b; Seager et al., 2008; Brönnimann
et al., 2009; Kushnir et al., 2010; Shin et al., 2010; Feng et al.,
2011; Nigam et al., 2011; Wang and Schubert, 2014; Donat et al.,
2015). Longer-term climatic trends such as the Pacific Decadal Oscil-
lation (PDO), Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), and Arctic
Oscillation (AO), all involving changing sea surface temperature
and air pressure patterns, also play a role in modulating and ampli-
fying North American drought cycles, including those in the Great
Plains (e.g. McCabe et al., 2004; Knight et al., 2006; Hu and Huang,
2009; Mo et al., 2009; Hu and Feng, 2010; Cook et al., 2010; Nigam
et al., 2011; Oglesby et al., 2012; Veres and Hu, 2013; Chylek et al.,
2014). While the details of how these patterns, either individually
or together, affect regional climate at various time periods is not
yet well understood, various combinations of them clearly lead to
drought conditions in the central and southwestern parts of North
America (and in regions beyond the scope of this study).
The 1930s and 1950s droughts in the Dust Bowl region differed
from other short-term twentieth century droughts in North Amer-
ica in that both involved simultaneous cool central Pacific and
warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures (Schubert et al., 2004;
Seager et al., 2008; Weiss et al., 2009; Cook et al., 2011b). The
1930s drought was characterized by simultaneous extremes in
both oceans and perhaps a greater role of Atlantic and northeast
Pacific warming than typical North American dry periods
(Kushnir et al., 2010; Cook et al., 2011b; Nigam et al., 2011;
Donat et al., 2015). Warmer sea surface temperatures in the North
Atlantic Ocean generally favor reduced warm-season precipitation
in the Great Plains (Cook et al., 2007; Kushnir et al., 2010; Veres
and Hu, 2013). Specifically, this combination of sea surface temper-
ature anomalies decrease the flow of humid air from the Gulf of
Mexico into the Plains during the warm season via the ‘‘Great
Plains Low-Level Jet” (Schubert et al., 2004; Zhang and Mann,
2005; Brönnimann et al., 2009), thus suppressing warm-season
rainfall (e.g. Seager et al. (2005), Cook et al. (2007), Burnette and
Stahle (2013)) and increasing warm-season temperatures (Donat
et al., 2015). Summer rainfall is crucial for sustaining crops and
providing and maintaining soil moisture before the dry, fallow,
windy, and, therefore, dusty cold weather season in the southern
Great Plains (Lee et al., 1994). While recent research has empha-
sized suppression of summer rainfall, Fig. 19 shows recorded win-
ter and summer precipitation as a percent of the twentieth century
average for Dodge City and Amarillo. For these two locations
within the Dust Bowl, there is no clear pattern of summer rainfall
being suppressed more than winter precipitation during the 1930s.
Model-reconstructed weather patterns also suggest this
reduced transport of humid air from the Gulf of Mexico into the
southern Great Plains summers as the Dust Bowl developed
(Brönnimann et al., 2009; Cook et al., 2011b). This maritime trop-
ical air, the Great Plains Low Level Jet, is the ultimate water source
for much of the precipitation on the Great Plains (Schmeisser et al.,
2010), more so than evaporation from the soil within the region.
Therefore, for a number of years, winter precipitation was insuffi-
cient to make up the progressively stronger moisture deficits built
up during the summer (Wu and Kinter, 2009), resulting in even less
soil moisture to start the subsequent warm season. The Dust Bowl
may have initiated as what is now called a ‘‘flash drought” (Peters
et al., 2002) that persisted and intensified. Decreased atmospheric
moisture supply during subsequent growing seasons, combined
with land use changes (see below) impacting soil moisture, both
exacerbated Dust Bowl conditions.
The progressive drying of the soil hindered the germination and
spread of grasses and forbs in the rangeland portions of the South-
ern Plains and made dryland farming almost impossible. By the
late 1930s there was nearly complete loss of vegetative cover over
large portions of the Dust Bowl core region (Weaver and Albertson,
1939: Weaver and Mueller, 1942), increasing its desiccation. These
internal positive feedbacks between continuous suppression of
precipitation, soil moisture, atmospheric conditions, and land
cover (Fig. 18) made the 1930s drought more severe in its impacts
on both farmland and native rangelands than other droughts since
ranching and agriculture began in the region.
El Niño years, with warm tropical eastern Pacific sea surface
temperatures, generally are wetter than average in the Dust Bowl
region. The 1930s drought ended when a strong, long-lasting
El Niño, perhaps the strongest of the century (Brönnimann et al.,
2012), developed in late 1939 and led to much wetter conditions
 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36 29

Fig. 19. Winter (October–March) and Summer (April–September) precipitation relative to twentieth century average for Dodge City and Amarillo. (Data from www.ncdc.
noaa.gov/IPS/lcd/lcd.html).

by 1940 and, especially, 1941 (Mauget, 2003b). Plentiful moisture, 7.2. Feedbacks between land use and climate
along with a healthier economy and improved knowledge of land
management, reversed the positive feedbacks that made the Climate is not independent of land-surface conditions, and land
1930s so devastating to the region. use changes in the Dust Bowl region may have further exacerbated
30 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36

the 1930s drought. The transition from grassland to non-irrigated the most soil and resulted in the lowest visibilities (Lee and
cropland in much of the southern Great Plains in the decades pre- Tchakerian, 1995) were associated with cyclones (Bernier et al.,
ceding the Dust Bowl decreased soil moisture, thus decreasing 1998). Borchert (1971) also suggested that increased frequency
evaporation and reducing atmospheric humidity. Less water vapor, of extreme wind speeds, which would be associated with such a
of course, leads to less precipitation, leading to a soil moisture- synoptic situation, increased the wind erosion in the Plains in the
rainfall feedback promoting drier conditions (Koster et al., 2000; 1930s, and that a ‘‘Dust Bowl” did not happen in the 1950s partly
Mauget, 2003a; Schubert et al., 2004; Ravi et al., 2010; D’Odorico because winds were not as strong. (Since Borchert (1971) did not
et al., 2013). Thus, this feedback between soil moisture and rainfall provide the data he used to make these assertions, they must be
may have made the 1930s drought more severe than it would have viewed with caution.) Low-pressure areas across North America
been without the prior introduction of agriculture to the region arguably create at least as many damaging wind events as thun-
(Koster et al., 2000; Mauget, 2003a; Schubert et al., 2004; derstorms and tropical cyclones (Knox et al., 2011), and the Dust
Raddatz, 2005; Shinker et al., 2006; Cook et al., 2008, 2009; Wu Bowl storms are key examples. (While the decades of the 1890s
and Kinter, 2009; Ravi et al., 2010). and 1910s contained periods of drought, Figs. 6 and 16 show that
In addition to soil moisture changes affecting the intensity of these droughts were shorter-lasting and much less severe than
the 1930s drought, the wind erosion itself may have reduced rain- those of the 1930s and 1950s.)
fall. High levels of dust in the air reflect sunlight thereby cooling
the lower atmosphere. Cooler air is less likely to rise and the result
is reduced rainfall. This is hypothesized to have created a positive
feedback where increased concentrations of dust in the air intensi-
fied the drought, which, in turn, caused more wind erosion (Seager
et al., 2008; Cook et al. (2009, 2011b, 2013). Seager et al. (2008)
concluded that the Dust Bowl drought was unique in that the des-
iccation of the soil and airborne dust significantly affected precip-
itation patterns and other atmospheric phenomena. Cook et al.
(2011b) found that adding dry soils and airborne dust to their gen-
eral circulation model significantly improved the model’s ability to
simulate the 1930s drought in the Great Plains. Cook et al. (2013)
extended this concept to previous megadroughts in the Plains,
showing that adding airborne dust to their model improved the
accuracy of their simulations as well.

7.3. Weather systems producing dust storms

Most blowing dust in the region is moved by winds associated

with cold fronts (Bernier et al., 1998) and massive moving walls
of dust along the leading edges of fronts are an iconic image of
the Dust Bowl (Fig. 1). The walls of dust are called haboobs (e.g.
Simpson and Britter (1979)). Although haboobs are most fre-
quently associated with cold air flowing out of thunderstorms, they
regularly are associated with cold fronts in Australia (Strong et al.,
2011) and, though much more frequent during the Dust Bowl,
cold-frontal haboobs continue to occur on the Great Plains
(Skwira et al., 2013). These evoke particular memories of the Dust
Bowl in local citizens, as described in present-day newspaper
accounts (e.g. Hennessy-Fiske (2011)). While haboobs are dramatic
and photogenic (Fig. 1), it should be noted that most dust storms in
the region are not associated with haboobs (Wigner and Peterson,
1987).
Borchert (1971) compared the synoptic weather conditions dur-
ing the 1890s and 1930s droughts to those of the 1910s and 1950s
droughts. The former were associated with nearly 70% more cyclo-
nic storm centers (and their associated cold fronts) than the latter.
These ‘‘Colorado Cyclones” are intense low-pressure centers that
develop east of the southern Rocky Mountains, especially south-
eastern Colorado, during the cold season then move to the north-
east (Bierly, 1999). Such storms typically are associated with
strong pressure gradients, hence strong winds, in the Dust Bowl
region, often under clear skies, making for ideal conditions for
wind erosion and increasing dust transport capacity. Henz and
Woiceshyn (1980) suggested that the most intense wind erosion
in such cyclones typically occurs within about a 150 km radius of
the low pressure center, especially to the south (i.e., towards the
Dust Bowl core). The most persistent dust storms in the Dust Bowl Fig. 20. Tilling equipment designed to reduce erosion. Top: Sandfighter (1963
photo courtesy Sam Stevens, Inc., Lamesa, Texas). Middle: Graham-Hoeme Plow
region occur with the presence of such cyclones (Wigner and (Year unknown, source: http://www.clover.okstate.edu/fourh/aitc/calendar/
Peterson, 1987). It has been shown that since the end of the Dust August/inventor.html#hoeme). Bottom: Noble blade (1970s (?) photo, source:
Bowl, those dust storms in the Southern Great Plains that moved http://www.weru.ksu.edu/ftp_site/NRCS/Ag%20Pictures/Equipmient-Tillage/).
 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36
8. Recovery and lessons learned
The Dust Bowl region recovered economically and socially, at
least to a large extent (e.g. Cordova and Porter (2015)). There
was above average rainfall for much of the 1940s and the Second
World War (1939–45) sparked the recovery of the general econ-
omy and, in particular, the rise of crop prices. Soil erosion control
became one of the main factors in farm management on the Great
Plains and the technology of erosion control advanced consider-
ably. Generally speaking, by the 1940s, there was more rain, farm-
ers knew more about managing the soil and had better equipment
to do so, and had the money to work the soil as needed. Farmers
suffered during the drought of the 1950s and wind erosion was,
at times, severe (Lee et al., 1993), but a stronger economy and
the lessons learned in the 1930s meant that the social and eco-
nomic consequences were much less extreme.
Several technological advances affecting erosion control began
during and soon after the 1930s. Over time, percolating water
draws clays down below the topsoil. More powerful tractors
allowed for deeper plowing, bringing clays back to the surface, thus
increasing soil cohesion. New equipment, especially ‘‘sandfight-
ers,” was developed to increase the roughness of the soil surface
and reduce the near-surface wind speed (Fryrear, 1969; Lee
et al., 1999). Two new plow designs began to be widely used in
the late 1930s. The ‘‘Graham-Hoeme plow” tilled the soil while
leaving crop residue on the soil surface. Another plow that left
plant matter on the soil surface was the ‘‘Noble blade”
(Baumhardt, 2003; Stewart et al., 2010) (Fig. 20). The development
and refinement of erosion control practices, including terracing
and wind strips, became widely used in the region (Baumhardt,
2003; Stewart et al., 2010; Tatarko et al., 2013).
The widespread, but not universal, adoption of irrigation
reduced erosion and gave farmers a way to remain profitable during
droughts. Less land in the region is farmed now than during the
1930s (Cunfer, 2005, p. 34), some from landowners deciding to con-
vert their land from cropland to rangeland, some from the creation
of National Grasslands, and some from government ‘‘set aside” pro-
grams. The latter are national programs to pay farmers to plant
native-type vegetation (grasses on the Great Plains) on the most
erodible lands for a yearly fee from the Federal government. The
‘‘Soil Bank” program lasted from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s
and the current version is the ‘‘Conservation Reserve Program,”
begun in 1985 and continuing to the present (Ervin and Lee, 1994;
Lee et al., 1999; Unger and Baumhardt, 2001; Lal et al., 2007).
A natural hazard need not become a natural disaster, and a nat-
ural disaster need not become an environmental catastrophe. A
hazard only becomes a disaster when it disrupts human socio-
economic activity (Feng and Zhang, 2005), and a natural disaster
only becomes an environmental catastrophe when entire human
societies and/or ecosystems cannot adapt to it (Leroy, 2006). We
believe the Dust Bowl was not overall a catastrophe because the
region was devastated, but temporarily. On the other hand,
Hornbeck (2012) shows that the portions of the Great Plains that
experienced the greatest loss of topsoil, from both wind and water
erosion, have had a decrease of land prices that continued at least
into the 1990s. Based on Hornbeck’s work, then, parts of the Dust
Bowl experienced an environmental catastrophe.
9. Future considerations
Although the Dust Bowl drought lasted for less than a decade, it
resulted in one of the most devastating and well-documented agri-
cultural, economic, and social disasters in the United States
(e.g. deMenocal (2001), Orlove (2005), Hornbeck (2012)). It illus-
trates the vulnerability and adaptability of modern societies to
31
environmental hazards, especially drought, and provides a case
study for assessing modern societal preparedness for an uncertain
future (deMenocal, 2001; Weiss and Bradley, 2001; Romm, 2011;
Fraser, 2013; McLeman et al., 2014). The future of the region with
respect to wind erosion is uncertain for several interrelated rea-
sons. Climate change is increasing the likelihood of more frequent
droughts in Southwestern North America (e.g. McCabe et al.
(2004), Overpeck and Udall (2010), Seager and Vecchi (2010),
Wehner et al. (2011), Joyce et al. (2013), Singh et al. (2013),
Seager et al. (2013), Cook et al. (2014a, 2015)) and the Great Plains
(Rosenzweig and Hillel, 1993; Gregory et al., 1997; Motha and
Baier, 2005; Cook et al., 2007, 2010; Seager and Vecchi, 2010;
Hoerling et al., 2012; Singh et al., 2013; Cook et al., 2015), with
‘‘megadroughts” a distinct and potentially underestimated possi-
bility (Ault et al., 2014; Cook et al., 2015). Some studies suggest a
significant drying trend in the region since 1980 (Damberg and
AghaKouchak, 2014). A clear warning of this potential was raised
in the early 2010s, when an extraordinary drought hit the Great
Plains, its severity on par with those of the 1930s and 1950s (see
Figs. 6 and 16) (Peterson et al., 2013; Grigg, 2014; Hoerling et al.,
2014; McGregor, 2015). This drought, too, apparently was caused
by sea-surface-temperature teleconnections (Seager and
Hoerling, 2014) and was accompanied by walls of dust reminiscent
of Dust Bowl storms (Skwira et al., 2013).
Land use change in the region is difficult to predict. Declines in
the water available for irrigation in the Ogallala Aquifer within the
Dust Bowl region (e.g. Kromm and White (1987), Luckey and
Becker (1999), Woods et al. (2000), Sophocleous (2010, 2012),
Scanlon et al. (2012), Steward et al. (2013), Haacker et al. (2015))
will affect agricultural land use (Brooks and Emel, 2000; Terrell
et al., 2002; Marek et al., 2005; Hornbeck and Keskin, 2014). Recent
(2008–2012) economic trends have resulted in Great Plains grass-
land being converted to intensive agriculture (Lark et al., 2015),
though how long this trend will continue is uncertain. It is not clear
what land uses will dominate the region in the future, though less
irrigation and more dryland farming are likely as well as more land
devoted to wind energy production (e.g. Harrington (2009)). Also
not clear is what effect such land use changes will have on regional
wind erosion. Few witnesses to the Dust Bowl are still alive, and
with new residents in the region coming predominantly from
other, non-arid regions, there is a loss of first hand wisdom gleaned
from the lessons of the 1930s (Porter, 2012, 2014). On the other
hand, new farmers do learn how to manage their land to reduce
erosion. But, just as during the 1930s, erosion control still is an eco-
nomic factor in the business of farming, and the next economic
shock will affect farmer’s decisions. Finally, with irrigation and
other technologies, farmers today are more resilient, though not
immune, to droughts than in the 1930s.
Reconstructions of past climates and numerical models of
future climate can help us understand the nature, intensity and fre-
quency of droughts in the Great Plains and the possible character-
istics of future dry periods. However, they alone are not enough to
understand the multiple causes of the 1930s Dust Bowl, which was
not just a natural extreme event, but also a human disaster. The
severity of the Dust Bowl event was a manifestation of multiple,
simultaneous natural and anthropogenic factors acting synergisti-
cally, as were the factors that combined to end the crisis. While
Dust Bowl-scale prolonged erosion is unlikely in the future, the
potential exists, especially if economic conditions in the region
deteriorate significantly in conjunction with extreme drought.
10. Multiple causes of wind erosion in the dust bowl
Wind erosion always has occurred in the Dust Bowl region.
Much of the sediment making up the soils of the region was
32 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36
dropped by the wind at some point in the near or distant past.
Before ranching began in the late nineteenth century, erosion likely
occurred when the grass cover significantly decreased – especially
during serious droughts, after fires and, possibly, after bison tram-
pled or otherwise destroyed the above-ground parts of the grass.
Less grass cover leads to increased energy of the wind acting on
the soil surface. As cattle replaced bison, a similar situation likely
occurred. With the advent of farming in the region, though, the sit-
uation on and in the soil changed considerably.
A hypothetical particle of soil (sand, silt or clay) is not eroded as
long as the forces holding it in place are stronger than the forces
impelling it to move. Any discussion of the factors that ‘‘cause”
wind erosion in the Dust Bowl, whether natural or human, should
focus on how these factors affect the application of forces acting on
soil particles.
The wind at the soil surface, if strong enough, will make the
grain move. The strength of the wind at ground level depends on
the general wind speed well above the surface and how ‘‘rough”
the surface is with respect to the wind. Wind speed high above
the ground results from the meteorological situation at the time.
Strong winds at ground level in the Dust Bowl region mostly are
associated with thunderstorms, the passage of fronts and the
movement of low pressure systems (especially the ‘‘Colorado
Cyclones” discussed previously) (Henz and Woiceshyn, 1980;
Wigner and Peterson, 1987; Bierly, 1999; Schultz and Meisner,
2009; Knox et al., 2011). Whether or not the winds of the 1930s
were stronger than other decades is poorly understood, but it is
possible that more fronts and low pressure systems occurred dur-
ing the 1930s drought years (Borchert, 1971). On the other hand,
with less moisture in a more stable atmosphere during the
drought, thunderstorms could have been less common. Regardless
of the relative windiness of the 1930s, in all years the Dust Bowl
region is windy and there generally is sufficient wind to erode con-
siderable amounts of soil if other factors allow it. Wind speed may
have been affected in some ways by human activities in the 1930s
Dust Bowl, but it primarily is a natural phenomenon.
Plants and other objects on the surface, along with the condi-
tion of the soil surface itself, slow down the wind and affect how
much of the energy of the wind is applied to the soil. A sufficient
plant cover will absorb the energy of the wind, thus preventing
erosion. Farming required the complete removal of the native grass
cover, and the drought reduced plant cover on rangelands. This
resulted in much more of the wind energy being expended directly
on the soil surface. A healthy crop in the field, like a dense grass
cover, usually slows the wind sufficiently to prevent widespread
erosion. However, crops are not in the field all year and when
moisture is not available during the growing season the crop cover
is decreased or, in the case of some Dust Bowl years, essentially
missing from the field most of the year. In addition, the poverty
experienced by farmers during the Great Depression made it diffi-
cult to maintain a crop in the field and re-plant if a crop failed early
in the growing season. Likewise, a rough soil surface will slow
down the wind and, therefore, reduce the force of the wind exerted
on the ground. Soil roughness is determined by the size of soil
clods and the creation of furrows in the field (discussed below).
The land cover was affected by both the drought and the economic
depression of the 1930s. The soil surface was affected by land man-
agement practices, economic conditions, and drought.
Gravity holds a soil particle down and is more effective if the
soil is sufficiently cohesive that the grain is part of a clod. Unat-
tached particles are relatively easy to erode, while aggregated par-
ticles are harder for the wind to move. Organic matter, soil
moisture, and clays all act to bind particles together.
In addition to protection from the winds, the prairie grasses that
died from drought or were removed to make room for crops had
dense root systems and left much organic matter in the soil.
Organic matter decreased over time after farming began in the
region, both from decomposition and removal by erosion
(Moldenhauer et al., 1958). Less organic matter results in less bind-
ing of the soil grains. Organic matter also holds water in the soil, so
the soils became drier as organic matter decreased. This further
promoted erosion by decreasing the cohesion of the particles, mak-
ing it harder to keep crops healthy. Tillage techniques begun in the
1930s left more of the crop residue in the field, which returned
some organic matter to the soil (Unger and Baumhardt, 2001)
but totals remained much lower than existed before farming. The
organic matter content of the soil primarily was determined by
the original condition of the native soil, economic conditions that
led to farming the region and land management practices that
affected the organic matter after farming began.
Clay particles, especially when wet, add to soil cohesion. Like
organic matter, erosion removes clays from the soil surface, though
clay eroded from upwind may be deposited on a field as well. Til-
lage implements were developed in the 1930s to bring clays up to
the surface (Unger and Baumhardt, 2001), but tractors powerful
enough for ‘‘deep plowing” were not readily available until the
1940s (Lee et al., 1999). So, climate and land management both
affected the clay content near the soil surface.
Water, too, helps hold soil clods together. Soil moisture is
affected by precipitation, the clay and organic content of the soil,
and how farmers manage the soil. In the 1930s, periods of contin-
uous drought left little water in the soil, even with the ‘‘dust
mulch” created on the soil surface to reduce evaporation. The cost
of fuel for tractors prevented many farmers from tilling often
enough to maintain the dust mulch. With decreased rainfall, vege-
tation pulled proportionally more moisture from the soil in order
to survive, further drying the soil below the surface during each
growing season. Climate, land management and economic condi-
tions all affected soil moisture.
By the 1940s, more rainfall led to more complete crop and grass
covers and new farming practices helped build clods on the surface.
In addition, an economy that provided most farmers with the money
to implement these practices helped reduce erosion by slowing the
near-surface wind, binding soil particles into clods, and increasing
soil moisture. As a consequence, less wind erosion occurred.
While the poet Virgil advised farmers to know the ways of the
wind before farming a new land, farmers in the North American
Great Plains learned over time about the winds, soils and agricul-
tural practices that work in the Dust Bowl region. As a practical
matter, there was no way for farmers at the time to anticipate
either the magnitude or the frequency of dust storms that hap-
pened when farming methods that had worked reasonably well
in the past and elsewhere were combined with unprecedented
drought, in their experience, at least, and the most devastating eco-
nomic depression in United States history. The dust storms of the
1930s resulted from a combination of climatic, land management
and economic factors. By the late 1930s and early 1940s, there
was more precipitation, greater knowledge about erosion control,
better equipment and methods to apply that knowledge, and more
money to afford to do so. No one factor can be said to be the
‘‘cause” of the Dust Bowl; this environmental disaster was the
result of a synergy between human and natural factors. We must
learn lessons from the 1930s Dust Bowl to avert future disasters
associated with climatic, technological, and economic changes to
agriculture and other environmental systems.
Acknowledgments
We thank Chris van Nice for drafting Figs. 4 and 13, Steven
Mauget for discussions on Great Plains drought, and three
 J.A. Lee, T.E. Gill / Aeolian Research 19 (2015) 15–36
anonymous reviewers for their suggestions on how to improve this
paper. Gill acknowledges support from NOAA Office of Education,
Educational Partnership Program with Minority Serving Institu-
tions (EPP/MSI) through cooperative agreements # NA17AE1623
and NA17AE1625, and NASA Grant NNX13A045G. The contents
of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and
do not necessarily represent the official views of NOAA or NASA.
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