The story of Australia's worst dry spell in a thousand years continues to astound. Last year we learned, "One farmer takes his life every four days." This year over half of Australia's agricultural land is in a declared drought.
How bad is it? One Australian newspaper is reporting:
Drought will become a redundant term as Australia plans for a permanently drier future, according to the nation's urban water industries chief ...
"The urban water industry has decided the inflows of the past will never return," Water Services Association of Australia executive director Ross Young said. "We are trying to avoid the term 'drought' and saying this is the new reality."
Unless we take start leading on climate action soon, America faces the same fate: In April, Science ($ubs. req'd) published research that "predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest" -- levels of aridity comparable to the 1930s Dust Bowl would stretch from Kansas to California. What causes this climatic disaster?
According to the study, as the planet warms, the Hadley Cell, which links together rising air near the Equator and descending air in the subtropics, expands poleward. Descending air suppresses precipitation by drying the lower atmosphere so this process expands the subtropical dry zones. At the same time, and related to this, the rain-bearing mid-latitude storm tracks also shift poleward. Both changes in atmospheric circulation, which are not fully understood, cause the poleward flanks of the subtropics to dry.
And that is separate from recent research that finds "future reductions in Arctic sea ice cover could significantly reduce available water in the American west" ($ubs. reqd). With the Arctic melting at a stunning rate, the West is facing a double drought whammy from climate change.
The time to act is now.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
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Comments
View as Flat
odograph Posted 11:26 am
06 Sep 2007
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Sam Wells Posted 2:47 pm
06 Sep 2007
Onward through the fog
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Steve Bloom Posted 3:36 pm
06 Sep 2007
Taking a few more minutes, I also checked to see if the Oz Bureau of Meteorology had something consistent with these stories, and they do. In fact, from the dates it appears likely that this BOM statement led to the stories.
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undyau Posted 6:04 pm
06 Sep 2007
There have been some epic rainfalls on the coast in the last quarter, but this isn't where most of the farming is, its where the people live. These rains boosted the water supply to some of the major cities , but have done little to relieve the drought inland.
Despite this, the state government has just approved two HUGE new coal mines. Whilst they talk about tackling climate change, their actions are a serious part of the problem.
undy
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caniscandida Posted 7:20 pm
06 Sep 2007
Better would have been something like, "Every four days, another farmer kills himself."
Clearly there can be no more serious subject. The BBC reporter should therefore have treated it with due respect, and taken greater care in expressing it.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Pangolin Posted 7:30 pm
06 Sep 2007
The whole nation is joining the farmers in commiting suicide.
Put the Carbon Back
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:02 am
07 Sep 2007
You claim in this article that Australia's dry spell is the "worst in 1000 years".
That is backed up by a link to another article:
http://climateprogress.org/2006/12/19/australias-facing-w ...
Which says "Along with the United States, Australia has suffered a major drought this year, "the worst for 1000 years."
That is backed up by a link to another article, not from a scientific journal, but from a newspaper:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2& ...
which says "Australia is facing its worst drought in 1000 years.
The prediction, made at an emergency summit on Australia's mounting water crisis, is 10 times worse than earlier forecasts and prompted urgent action to secure drinking water supplies for Adelaide and rural towns."
So -- suddenly it's now a "Prediction" not a fact.
John Bailo
Sutext:
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Sam Wells Posted 2:14 am
07 Sep 2007
For example, here in Texas we generally have seen an extra 12 inches in rainfall over the last few months, which knocked the cotton crop down by 30-50%. Many farmers went out of business as a result. It all comes down to sol moisture - for the last two years before this wet cycle, there was absolutely no moisture in the top 16 inches of soil. This caused more brackish water from pumps and the Rio Grande to be used, which caused poorer soil condition due to salting. Glad I'm not a farmer.
Coal seems to be a different topic but before we jump on the Aussies for exporting coal, we need to look at what we're doing here in the US. Ever seen Powder River coal mines from an airplane? How about topped mountains in Appalachia? Not only are our coaling operation massive, but we burn the stuff here, too. /sammie
Onward through the fog
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Rebekka Posted 3:02 pm
09 Sep 2007
And shortly after that we had a pertient reminder that statistics quoted in the media are often pulled out of the journalist's butt.
The statistic in question turned out to be (a) two decades old, (b) was every six days anyway, not every four, and (c) completely un-related to the current drought.
Although the current drought is very bad and clearly related to climate change, suicide patterns of farmers probably have more to do with a lack of social support in rural areas, particularly for men who are trying to fit into a socially acceptable role of tough Aussie bloke.
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