Australia faces the “permanent dry” — as do we
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 (subs. 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” (subs. 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.
September 6th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
“One farmer takes his life every four days.”
…Would think that after the first time he wouldn’t need to try again??
September 6th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Normally I’d say that’s funny. But this is a pretty dire situation….
September 6th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
And this stuff doesn’t reach the main stream media because; Where is the discussion.
I’ve read the books and I’m on board. But what about our colleges and universities? What are the faculty in these institutions doing? surely they have heard something about it.
September 6th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
The media here is slow to cover other countries, especially when there is already one dominant foreign-policy issue (Iraq).
September 6th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
I understand that the water supplies for Sydney, Melbourne, and other Aussie cities are threatened as well.
Australia’s drought may stay for keeps
Grim outlook on rain
September 6th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Joe,
Saw this article about the effect of the “bunny fence” on rainfall in Australia a few weeks back. Climate Science had this recent post about land use as climate forcing.
September 6th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
oops
September 10th, 2007 at 12:35 am
I live in Los Angeles. There are many decisions to be made to make our future more water-secure but these decisions are considered political suicide: should we continue to build in fire-prone hill sides, should we be allowed to have wasteful lawns and pools?
October 12th, 2007 at 12:04 am
I have heard of droughts that have occurred throughout the world and most
of the time the rainfall does return. Even if this takes time. It would make sense more for the rainfall to return given examples of other nations.
Also downsizing factories and carpooling does reduce the emissions
November 17th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
the drought sucks, we have large restrictions on what we can use and when. most peoples gardends are dead and even the native trees are beginning to die.
February 6th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
Come and show your support by pledging a raindrop, and together with RSVP you can help break the drought!
http://www.breakthedrought.com.au
March 18th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
lol
April 19th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
i wanted to live in australia but I’m not so sure now. Where is the drought?
April 24th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I have to do a project on school for this could someone explain the whole thing to me
April 30th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
ditto. school project
what is causing it? no rain? or is it el nino related?
May 29th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
I live in sydney
we were on the WORST level of drought/water restrictions. we could not water our gardens fill up our pools or wash our cars. Nowadays its calmed down alot
we have a desalanation plant in progress and the dams area above 50%! =]
July 18th, 2008 at 7:13 am
I LIVE IN AUSSIE, NOWDAYS THE DROUGHT IS DIEYING OUT BUT 1 YEAR AGO IT WAS 35 DEGREES IN WINTER AND NOT ONE DROP OF RAIN!
August 4th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Refer to this disturbing story about the gravity of the situation in Australia with River Murray ,the main fresh water source for over 5m Australians http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=455698
We soft launched Windesal on 7th April at the CEDA forum on water in Adelaide(massive interest over 60 systems), our global engineers/project managers http://www.arup.com/ australasia/ skill.cfm?pageid=6282 are indication potential market in Aust large numbers of Windesal® although it seems most Govts want to buy our water/power under contract, we can do up to 40m liters per day per system from sea/ground water to fresh
There has been much talk about climate change, but not much about where we will see its first impact.
Flooding ,Drought, water is the vector of climate change, we already have seen in recent times in where there is intense competition for water, Windesal® can sustain many areas of these regions of Aust/Worldwide that will be impacted by this issue, that may suffer physically or economically from this lack of fresh water shortage and could benefit from sustainable energy.
Windesal® can deal efficiently in way to lead the greatest single issue of the 21st Century: Sustainability.