Warming will worsen water wars

The magnitude of drought and floods will increase with climate change 8

drybed-small.jpg

A very good article in the Washington Post lays out the problem we face.

"Global warming will intensify drought, and it will intensify floods," explains Stephen Schneider, editor of the journal Climatic Change and a lead author for the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Why?

As the air gets warmer, there will be more water in the atmosphere. That's settled science ... You are going to intensify the hydrologic cycle. Where the atmosphere is configured to have high pressure and droughts, global warming will mean long, dry periods. Where the atmosphere is configured to be wet, you will get more rain, more gully washers.

The droughts will be especially bad. How bad?

Richard Seager, a senior researcher at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, looked at 19 computer models of the future under current global warming trends. He found remarkable consistency: Sometime before 2050, the models predicted, the Southwest will be gripped in a dry spell akin to the Great Dust Bowl drought that lasted through most of the 1930s.

Droughts and water shortages already been driving conflict around the globe:

The potential for conflict is more than theoretical. Turkey, Syria and Iraq bristle over the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt trade threats over the Nile. The United Nations has said water scarcity is behind the bloody wars in Sudan's Darfur region. In Somalia, drought has spawned warlords and armies.

Already, the World Health Organization says, 1 billion people lack access to potable water. In northern China, retreating glaciers and shrinking wetlands that feed the Yangtze River prompted researchers to warn that water supplies for hundreds of millions of people may be at risk.

We still have time to avert devastating drought in the Southwest -- and worsening water wars around the globe -- in the second half of the century. But only if we act now to begin sharply reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Joseph Romm is the editor of Climate Progress and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

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  1. Jon Rynn's avatar

    Jon Rynn Posted 10:17 am
    24 Aug 2007

    I'd like to know more about flooding......I have a feeling that what will get people's attention in the U.S. will be flooding more than drought, for instance, the Midwest has just gotten drenched, and the connection is immediate.

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  2. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 10:50 am
    24 Aug 2007

    Revivify!

    Global Heating will revivify the deserts.
    More water vapor means more rain in more places.
    The Sahara, the Gobi and the New Mexican deserts will shrink.
    Get ready for abundance!!!

    John Bailo


    Sutext:

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  3. GreyFlcn Posted 11:58 am
    24 Aug 2007

    All the better reasonAll the better reason to grow biofuels in some of the least stable regions of the world.
    That way we can make these wars happen even faster.
    Aren't we smart.
    http://www.insidegreentech.com/1311/report-says-biofuel-p ...
    ___
    More water vapor means more rain in more places.

    Not neccisarily.
    It could just as easily mean that the increased temperature causes the clouds to rise high enough that they condense and rain out, in the middle of the ocean.
    As was experienced recently with the 2005 drought in the Amazon rainforrest.
    Not to mention, intense heatwaves kill vegetation.

    And the less vegetation, the more likely that deserts will increase.
    As is, we're in danger of having the Amazon become a Savanna like Africa.

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  4. GreyFlcn Posted 12:02 pm
    24 Aug 2007

    Aren't we happy3% of the worlds water is freshwater.

    Only 1% isn't inside glaciers.
    Lets go waste it on biofuels!

    Yeah!
    http://youtube.com/watch?v=tIBw25BziZY

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  5. HealOurWaters Posted 1:25 am
    25 Aug 2007

    Great article from the Washington PostWater is an important issue and we must pressure the presidential candidates to address it!
    Did you know that the cost of cleaning up the Great Lakes would actually SAVE billions of dollars in the long-term? Using economic studies, we can show politicians that it actually makes financial sense to take action!
    Take a look at the site:

    http://www.healthylakes.org/

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  6. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 11:22 am
    25 Aug 2007

    Amazon deforestation rate falls to lowest on recor

    http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0810-amazon_deforestation.h ...
       

    Preliminary estimates show that between August 1, 2006 and July 30, 2007, some 3,707 square miles (9,600 square kilometers) of rainforest were cleared, a 31 percent drop from 2006 when 5,419 sq ml (14,040 sq km) were lost (2006 figures were recently revised from 13,100 sq km). Deforestation rates have fallen sharply -- 65 percent -- since 2004 when 10,590 sq mi (27,429 sq km) were destroyed.

    John Bailo


    Sutext:

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  7. GreyFlcn Posted 12:49 pm
    25 Aug 2007

    And thenIncidentally, there was that ban on accepting soy from newly deforrested land that ends.... in 2007.

    http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/62/2 ...

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  8. GreyFlcn Posted 12:56 pm
    25 Aug 2007

    And then there's the Transoceanic highwayAnd then there's the Transoceanic highway, set to complete in 2009, which will streamline the removal of trees and products from Brazil to Asia.
    http://www.biceca.org/en/Article.28.aspx

    http://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/Transoceanic_Highw ...

    http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/11/05/M ...

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