In a warmer world, the deserts may grow drier, but the parts where humans dwelled will likely again be visited by what attracted those humans in the first place: flowing water. From Cairo to Phoenix, desert cities rose where rivers made arid soils livable. Then, as population grew, humans seized control of those aquatic arteries, diverting them in ways that allowed for even more growth. But after people are gone, the diversions will soon follow them. Drier, hotter desert climates will be complemented by wetter, stormier mountain weather systems that will send floods roaring downstream, overwhelming dams, spreading over their former alluvial plains, and entombing whatever was built there in annual layers of silt. Within them, fire hydrants, truck tires, shattered plate glass, condominia, and office buildings may remain indefinitely, but as far from sight as the Carboniferous Formation once was.

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