Drought-stricken Colorado River Basin could see additional 20% drop in water flow by 2050
This is what climate change has brought.
“Aridification” is what Bradley Udall formally calls the situation in the western U.S. But perhaps more accurately, he calls it hot drought – heat-induced lack of water due to climate change. That was the core of research released in 2017 by Udall, a senior climate and water scientist at Colorado State University’s Colorado Water Center, and Jonathan Overpeck at the University of Michigan.
Their revelation was that the heat from climate change was propelling drought. “Previous comparable droughts were caused by a lack of precipitation, not high temperatures,” the study said. And all the factors at play were having compounding effects on each other that made the situation even worse. Those impacts were being felt most acutely on the biggest water system in the West – the Colorado River Basin.
Yves here. In parts of the West, water rights have long been hotly contested. Potable water is the natural resource that is projected to come into serious shortage first. That makes management of resources like the Colorado River of critical importance, yet the bodies responsible for its stewardship are late to come to grips with the impact of perma-droughts
By Jan Ellen Spiegel. Originally published at Yale Climate Connections
Colorado is no stranger to drought. The current one is closing in on 20 years, and a rainy or snowy season here and there won’t change the trajectory.
This is what climate change has brought.