Shortages of water and lack of rainfall have long been put down as a result of worsening climate change but new research by a group of American scientists has found that global warming has little to no effect on drought.
The detailed analysis by researchers from Princeton University looked at wind speed, humidity, and radiation levels and confirmed that there had been 'little change' in drought over the past 60 years despite claims by climate change supporters.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had estimated that global temperatures have risen by 0.23F per decade since the 1950s.
Droughts cause hot weather and not the other way
But the new research published in Nature journal claims that droughts cause hot weather and not the other way around as there is less cooling from evaporation due to rainfall levels.
The findings back up the previous work of scientist Justin Sheffield who claims that the most significant droughts occurred in the 1950s and 60s, way before the creation or start of global warming.
Sheffield highlights flaws in the use of the world's main measure of drought - the Palmer Drough Severity Index claiming that it overestimates the influence of temperature on evaporation which would skew estimates of impact.
Met Office forecaster Simon Brown told New Scientist Magazine, Sheffield's analysis is 'probably right.'
He added: "There has been a growing acknowledgement that the PDSI should not be trusted when doing climate change studies."
Professor of physical climate change at the University of Leeds, Piers Forster said: "The study is an important contribution in highlighting the complexity of drought prediction."