The Central Valley is sinking: drought forces farmers to ponder the abyss

[ScienceRocks]

The Central Valley is sinking: drought forces farmers to ponder the abyss

The Central Valley is sinking: drought forces farmers to ponder the abyss
As people dig ever deeper to find water, nearly 1,200 square miles of California is sinking 2 inches a month – destroying roads, bridges and farmland in the process



Cracks form in a field near Firebaugh, California. Photograph: David McNew/Getty Images
Suzanne Goldenberg in Firebaugh, California

On a day when the skies were ashen from the smoke of distant wildfires, Chase Hurley kept his eyes trained on the slower-moving disaster at ground level: collapsing levees, buckling irrigation canals, water rising up over bridges and sloshing over roads.

This is the hidden disaster of California’s drought. So much water has been pumped out of the ground that vast areas of the Central Valley are sinking, destroying millions of dollars in infrastructure in the gradual collapse.

Four years of drought – and the last two years of record-smashing heat – have put water in extremely short supply.

Such climate-charged scenarios form the backdrop to the United Nations negotiations starting in Paris on 30 November, which are seeking to agree on collective action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But the real-time evidence of climate change and the other effects of human interference in natural systems are already changing the contours of California’s landscape.

Wow, this sucks for the people effected by it.

 

[waltky]

Dead Sea drying...

Dead Sea drying: A new low-point for Earth
Thu, 16 Jun 2016 - The Dead Sea is one of the great ecological treasures of the world but it is shrinking at an alarming rate, as Kevin Connolly reports.

The Dead Sea, the salty lake located at the lowest point on Earth, is gradually shrinking under the heat of the Middle Eastern sun. For those who live on its shores it's a slow-motion crisis - but finding extra water to sustain the sea will be a huge challenge. If there's one thing everyone knows about the Dead Sea it is that you can't sink in it. It is eight or nine times saltier than the oceans of the world - so dense and mineral rich that it doesn't even feel like normal water, more like olive oil mixed with sand. For decades no holiday in the Holy Land or Jordan has been complete without a photograph of the bather sitting bolt upright on the surface, usually reading a newspaper to emphasise the extraordinary properties of the water.

But the Dead Sea is also a unique ecosystem and a sensitive barometer of the state of the environment in a part of the world where an arid climate and the need to irrigate farms combine to create a permanent shortage of water. You may have read that the Dead Sea is dying. You can see why the idea appeals to headline writers but it isn't quite true. As the level drops, the density and saltiness are rising and will eventually reach a point where the rate of evaporation will reach a kind of equilibrium. So it might get a lot smaller, but it won't disappear entirely. It is however shrinking at an alarming rate - the surface level is dropping more than a metre (3ft) a year.

When you consider that the surface of the Dead Sea is the lowest point on the planet - currently 420m (1,380ft) below sea level - that means that the planet's lowest point is being recalibrated on an annual basis. It is deep enough that journeying along the road that winds down to the shore causes your ears to pop as they do on an aircraft coming in to land. The landscapes of the Dead Sea have an extraordinary, almost lunar quality to them - imagine the Grand Canyon with Lake Como nestling in its depths. And the people of the ancient world understood that there was something unique in the place, even if they couldn't be quite sure what it was. The story goes that Cleopatra used products from the area as part of her beauty regime, which as everyone knows also allegedly included asses' milk and almond extract - although in truth tales like that are ten-a-penny around the Middle East.

And it's possible that King Herod, who had a winter palace nearby, came here for his health too - although his tarnished historical reputation does tend to devalue his worth as a celebrity endorser in the classical world. What is certain is that when the Romans occupied the Middle East they exerted rigid military control over the roads around the Dead Sea because it was such a fertile source of salt - a commodity so valuable then that it was used as a form of currency. And the health benefits appear to be real enough. The intense barometric pressure so far below sea level may produce atmospheric conditions beneficial for asthmatics - I am a sufferer and I noticed a degree of difference. And people with the painful skin disease psoriasis also seem to find relief in the combination of mineral-rich water, soothing mud and intense sunlight. In some countries, health agencies and charities pay for people with the condition to come on therapeutic trips.

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