I always visualized the “last harvest” scene in Threads. The end of mechanized agriculture, modern food preservation and distribution infrastructure, and outright losses of skilled agriculturalists seem like they’d be more than sufficient to cause famine once any reserves are looted/exhausted/spoiled. The “Charlottesville” study touches on things like the early slaughter of livestock to preserve grain stocks, distribution issues and food riots, depletion of game, and the lack of capacity of post-industrial agriculture. Throw in disease, violence, exposure, died of wounds/radiation/acts of war, loss of medical care, and things like depressive suicide and there’s potential for a pretty hefty drop in population even without the mega-drought.
Like CastleBravo said, it’s pretty hard to see water sources drying up per Howling Wilderness. Having grown up in the ArkLaTex, even our drought years still had plenty of water around. Maybe short term variations in rainfall and temperature, but the idea of a continent wide drought seems like it’s not supported by the amount of damage done in the exchange. That said, areas that saw heavy combat, like Central Europe and China seem like they’d be devastated and hard put to produce sufficient food for even their depleted populations.
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