In bold print:
Climate change could make droughts like this year's more common
Further down in the article:
No research has directly linked these particular drought events to climate change. But scientists are confident that rising temperatures will amplify droughts across much of the US.
Rising temperatures might, but there is no research to accurately even predict that (all models predicted increases far beyond reality). The nonsense of throwing in panic trigger statements without any valid connection really ought to stop.
As for the Mississippi, even in the heyday of steamboats plying the River. The channel changes, and sandbars were always a hazard. While low water might exacerbate that, the reservoirs on the Missouri, at Ft. Peck, Garrison (Lake Sakakaweja), and Oahe, were all touted as flood control reservoirs, but are routinely dumped to keep water levels up on the lower Mississippi, expressly for shipping. That manipulation of water levels in those extensive reservoirs has seriously affected boating in those lakes and businesses which are related.
