Not just global
warming OR drought
By Patrick
Douglas
Many people are aware of either global warming, or, if
living in the southwest United States, the ongoing worst drought ever. However,
most people are surprisingly unaware of the conflation of the two and the
severity of the implications of both drought and warming while occurring together.
In two articles, “A new view on sea level rise” by Stefan Rahmstorf published
in Nature, and, “Dry Times Ahead” by
Jonathan Overpeck and Bradley Udall published in Science Magazine by the American Association for the Advancement of
Science.
In this study, the IPCC is trying to determine the future
sea level rise by measuring the melting of glaciers all over the northern and
arctic areas of the world. “The Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected a global sea level rise of 18 to 59
centimetres from 1990 to the 2090s.” (Rahmstorf, 44) However, in this IPCC
study AR4, their “range
assumes a near-zero net contribution of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
to future sea level rise.” (Rahmstorf, 44) In reality, many recent
studies have shown not only a much larger increase in sea level rise, but also
a decrease in continental ice sheet mass and amount of glaciers. The IPCC AR4
study indicates a max sea level rise in centimeters in the twenty first century
at about sixty centimeters, whereas the range of max rises for a number of
other recent studies show anywhere from one hundred to over two hundred
centimeters. (Figure 1, Rahmstorf, 45) The difference between the IPCC’s study
and other recent studies show the IPCC’s increases are static, where most other
studies show an exponential increase in sea level rise due to many negative
factors increasing all at the same time. The IPCC is severely underestimating
the future sea level rise because it is only taking one variable, glaciers,
into consideration, whereas there are many other variables, some not related to
climate change and the abundance of water, but to the absence of it.
The relation of too much or not enough water associated with
warming temperatures is more profoundly linked than one may assume. In this
study of the Colorado River flow and its reservoirs, it can be shown that
global warming and drought certainly are linked. “In the past decade, many locations, notably in the headwaters region
of the Colorado River, have been more than 1°C warmer
than the 20th century average. This warming has been the primary
driver in reducing late-season snowpack and the annual flow of the Colorado River.
These reductions, coupled with the most severe drought observed since 1900, have
caused the biggest regional water reservoirs—Lake Powell and Lake Mead—to decline
from nearly full in 1999 to about 50% full in 2004.” (Overpeck, Udall, 1642) I
have personally seen the area of white rock between the sun-bleached mountains and
lake water level grow larger and larger over the past 12 years as well as the
reduction in late season snow pack as I was recently able to summit Mt. San
Gorgonio where in years past, would be impossible due to the amount of snow
still present in early spring. The reductions in these reservoirs have immense
effects on all the major cities of the west, which rely on these reservoirs for
water. As we can see, no longer is global warming simply an issue concerning
sea level rise, but also concerning extreme drought and increasing scarcity of
water we need to live.
