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« You will believe what we say because we are ABC news | Main | "Life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us" »

More alarmists

LA Times:

The driest periods of the last century - the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and the droughts of the 1950s - may become the norm in the Southwest United States within decades because of global warming, according to a study released Thursday.

The research suggests that the transformation may already be underway. Much of the region has been in a severe drought since 2000, which the study's analysis of computer climate models shows as the beginning of a long dry period.

The study, published online in the journal Science, predicted a permanent drought by 2050 throughout the Southwest - one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation.

The data tell "a story which is pretty darn scary and very strong," said Jonathan Overpeck, a climate researcher at the University of Arizona who was not involved in the study.

Richard Seager, a research scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University and the lead author of the study, said the changes would force an adjustment to the social and economic order from Colorado to California.

"There are going to be some tough decisions on how to allocate water," he said. "Is it going to be the cities, or is it going to be agriculture?"

Seager said the projections, based on 19 computer models, showed a surprising level of agreement. "There is only one model that does not have a drying trend," he said.

Philip Mote, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington who was not involved in the study, added, "There is a convergence of the models that is very strong and very worrisome."

...

For the U.S., the biggest problem would be water shortages. The seven Colorado River Basin states - Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and California - would battle each other for diminished river flows.

Mexico, which has a share of the Colorado River under a 1944 treaty and has complained of U.S. diversions in the past, would join the struggle.

Inevitably, water would be reallocated from agriculture, which uses most of the West's supply, to urban users, drying up farms. California would come under pressure to build desalination plants on the coast, despite environmental concerns.

"This is a situation that is going to cause water wars," said Kevin Trenberth, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

"If there's not enough water to meet everybody's allocation, how do you divide it up?"

Officials from seven states recently forged an agreement on the current drought, which has left the Colorado River's big reservoirs - Lake Powell and Lake Mead - about half-empty. Without some very wet years, federal water managers say, Lake Mead may never refill.

By fnord12 | April 9, 2007, 1:15 PM | Liberal Outrage & Science


Comments

Oh, man, it'll be just like Ice Pirates!

Holy crap! Somebody besides me remembers that movie.

Want to borrow it?

Also see: Solarbabies

tank girl

Matt loves Solar Babies! Also, sugar babies.

goddammit wayne, that's gleaming the cube!

I blame it on the space herpes!

They make a cream for that, don't they?

Also, I smell an upcoming review or two from that short list of movies.