Crop yields in recent dry years were less affected by drought than crops of the dust-bowl droughts of the 1930s, when there was less carbon dioxide.

WSJ: Harrison H. Schmitt and William Happer: In Defense of Carbon Dioxide

That being said, differences in land use and farming practices since the Dust Bowl make the comparison of real-world impacts more complicated.

FORBES: The Great American Drought: Climate Change? The New Dust Bowl?

These problems, notably a dust bowl that dwarfs that of the Depression-era U.S., are adding millions of new refugees every year.

FORBES: Magazine Article

New stories and a novel about a whacked-out imaginary town during the Dust Bowl drought.

NEWYORKER: Karen Russell

Of course, the U.S. has experienced many severe droughts during the past century, including the Dust Bowl that produced major ecological and agricultural damage throughout American and Canadian prairies from 1930-36 (and in some areas, until 1940).

FORBES: He's Baaack!: A Hot New Media Blast From Al Gore