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January 1st, 2008
As reported by Treehugger, some researchers – in the face of the American West’s recent bout with several severe water shortages – have stepped forward and confidently asserted that there does indeed exist a link between global warming and the scarcity, namely the shrinking snowpacks. While this seems intuitive, this article is noteworthy as it is the first scientific declaration that the situation will worsen, not to mention its clarion call that many areas in Asia, South America and India don’t even know they have a problem. As the article notes:
“…Tim P. Barnett, a climatologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, explained that the West typically depends on a large, late-melting snowpack to replenish its reservoirs in late spring. However, due to global warming-induced effects, the snowpack has been shrinking earlier and at a faster pace, a trend that will worsen in coming years – depriving the West of a significant source of freshwater. This, he said, would result in a large-scale “water crisis in the West.”
…The concern for water users in the West, Barnett explained, is that while there is still the same level of precipitation as in years past, more is falling as rain instead of as snow. Dammed reservoirs already overflowing with water in the winter risk producing floods downstream; in the late spring, when the level of stored water is decreased to allow for meltwater from the snowpacks to come in, it will already have been much depleted by the warming and additional rain….”