A sunken boat reemerges in September 2022 in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada, after unprecedented drought. (David McNew/Getty Images)
Much of the Northern Hemisphere is struggling with drought or the threat of drought, as Europe experiences an unusually warm, precipitation-free winter and swaths of the American West remain mired in an epic megadrought.
But it’s not just those pockets feeling the pain in the U.S. Most of the Western United States is in some form of drought, with areas of extreme drought concentrated in the Great Plains and Texas. A 23-year megadrought has left the Southwest at the driest it is estimated to have ever been in 1,200 years, based on tree-ring data.
That’s very bad news for Texas cotton farmers. The New York Times recently reported that “2022 was a disaster for upland cotton in Texas,” leading to short supplies and high prices of tampons and cloth diapers, among other products. “In the biggest loss on record, Texas farmers abandoned 74 percent of their planted crops — nearly six million acres — because of heat and parched soil, hallmarks of a megadrought made worse by climate change,” the Times noted.
Even recent heavy storms in California haven’t brought the state out of drought, because the precipitation deficit is so big.
A car drives through a flooded road in Gilroy, Calif., in January. (Michael Ho Wai Lee/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“I want to be clear that these storms — and the likely rain and snow we may get over the next few weeks — did not, nor will they fully, end the drought, at least not yet,” Yana Garcia, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, said last Wednesday. “We’re in better shape than we were two months ago, but we’re not out of the woods.”
Just days earlier, Lake Powell, the second-largest U.S. reservoir, dropped to a new record low. Powell is created by a Colorado River dam along the Arizona-Utah border, and if the reservoir goes much lower, experts warn, water won’t be able to pass through it. Millions of people who rely on the Colorado would then lose access to their water supply.
“If you can’t get water out of the dam, it means everyone downstream doesn’t get water,” Brad Udall, a water and climate scientist at Colorado State University, told USA Today. "That includes agriculture, cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix." The hydroelectric power plant for which the dam was constructed would also cease to function.
When the current 23-year megadrought plaguing the American West began, Lake Powell and Lake Mead — the largest U.S. reservoir, also on the Colorado — were 95% full. Now, they’re one-quarter full, according to Udall.
Logs and driftwood on Sept. 8, 2022, near Hite, Utah, remain where they settled when Lake Powell was at its highest-ever water level. (David McNew/Getty Images)
In order to prevent what one California official calls “a doomsday scenario,” the Department of the Interior will have to impose reductions in water allotments for downriver users.
Scientists say that the underlying conditions — growing demand for water and naturally occurring periodic drought — are being exacerbated by climate change. Warmer temperatures cause more water to evaporate, making both droughts and heavy precipitation more extreme. Climate change makes droughts “more frequent, longer, and more severe,” according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
"It’s unfortunate that the largely natural occurrence of a drought has coincided with this increasing warming due to greenhouse gases," Flavio Lehner, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Cornell University, said. "That has brought everything to a head much earlier than people thought it would."
In Europe, an unusually warm, dry winter has forced ski resorts in the Alps to close for lack of snow, and left the canals of Venice running dry in Italy. Some of the city’s iconic gondolas are stuck in the mud. Europe experienced its third-warmest January on record, France has seen a record dry spell of 31 days without rain, and the Alps have received less than half their normal snowfall so far this winter.
Last Wednesday, Britain’s National Drought Group warned that one hot, dry spell would return England to the severe drought conditions it endured last summer.
Low water levels at Baitings Reservoir on Aug. 12, 2022, reveal an ancient packhorse bridge amid a heatwave in the U.K. at Ripponden, West Yorkshire. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
The threat goes beyond tourism: A study published last month by researchers from Graz University of Technology in Austria warned that Europe’s drinking water supply has become “very precarious.” Much of Europe has been in a drought since 2018, and a review of satellite data of groundwater confirmed acute shortages in parts of France, Italy and Germany.
“A few years ago, I would never have imagined that water would be a problem here in Europe,” Torsten Mayer-Gürr, one of the researchers, said.
This development follows a summer of record-breaking heat waves and droughts that left thousands dead across the continent, as well as the worst wildfire season on record. Europe’s hot, dry summer coincided with acute droughts in the U.S. — even in normally wet regions like the Northeast — and in Asia. The dropping water levels revealed buried artifacts, including the wreckage of a German World War II warship in Serbia, dead bodies in Lake Mead and ancient Buddhist statues in China’s Yangtze River.
Last summer’s drought across the Northern Hemisphere was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to an October 2022 study by World Weather Attribution, a group of international scientists who explore the link between global warming and the increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events it causes.
An emaciated cow stands at the bottom of a water pan that has been dried up for 4 months, in Iresteno, a town bordering Ethiopia, on Sept. 1, 2022. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images)
The worst impacts of ongoing drought are being felt in the Horn of Africa, where millions of residents in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia are contending with food insecurity due to poor harvests. The region faces a forecast of a sixth consecutive low rainy season this spring.
Meanwhile, it’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and crop yields are being diminished by drought there as well. Argentina is a leading exporter of soy and corn, but its production is being drastically reduced this year as extremely high temperatures exacerbate a drought.
Climate scientists say that adaptation to climate change-related droughts is essential, including reducing water usage and building new infrastructure, like aquifers, to better manage water resources.
What keeps triggering earthquakes in Turkey? An expert explains
NIAMH CAVANAGH
Heavy-duty machines working on debris of collapsed buildings after earthquakes hit multiple Turkish provinces on Tuesday. (Orhan Pehlul/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
LONDON — A powerful aftershock struck southern Turkey on Monday, in what has been a series of tremors to hit the region since the devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake earlier this month.
The death toll for both Turkey and Syria has been steadily climbing since Feb. 6, with fatalities now surpassing 50,000. According to statistics from the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, 15 million people across 10 different provinces in Turkey have been affected by the major quakes and subsequent tremors.
Over the course of three weeks, Turkey has experienced several earthquakes with a magnitude of 5.6 or higher. To make sense of the continued tragedies there, Yahoo News spoke with Ebru Bozdag, an associate professor of geophysics at the Colorado School of Mines.
How does an earthquake happen?
Smoke billows from the port of Iskenderun, Turkey, on Feb. 7 after an earthquake. (Burak Kara/Getty Images)
“The primary reason for earthquakes is the relative movement of tectonic plates at the surface,” Bozdag said.
“The Earth, very roughly, has four major layers. From surface to the center: crust, mantle, outer and inner cores. The crust is broken into rigid tectonic plates, which float on top of the mantle due to the convection currents in the mantle. As the plates move relative to each other, earthquakes happen at plate boundaries. But we also observe some seismic activity inside tectonic plates as well.
“Another reason for earthquakes is related to mantle plumes and associated volcanic activities which can occur inside tectonic plates,” she explained, “such as the type of earthquakes seen in Hawaii, which is located almost in the middle of the Pacific Plate.”
Why has Turkey experienced so many earthquakes this month?
Streets turned into rubble after a quake in the city of Hatay, Turkey, on Sunday. (Umut Unver/dia images via Getty Images)
“Turkey is located in one of the most seismically active regions on Earth,” Bozdag said. “Due to the northward push of the Arabian Plate and the subduction [when one plate moves under another and into the mantle] in the Mediterranean Sea, the Anatolian Plate is trying to escape the west, performing a counterclockwise rotational motion using the two major faults zones: North Anatolian and East Anatolian faults.”
She continued: “The recent earthquakes in East Anatolia have occurred on the East Anatolian Fault and the nearby faults where three tectonic plates meet, what is called a triple junction: the Arabian Plate, the Anatolian Plate and the African Plate. The Arabian and African plates move northwards at about a few millimeters every year, which accumulates stress at the plate boundaries, known as fault zones. We are observing the stress release along the faults with the recent earthquakes.”
Is it possible that Turkey could continue to have earthquakes more frequently for the next few weeks or months?
Firefighters extinguish a fire in the rubble of a factory in Hatay province on Sunday. (Kadir Kemal Behar/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
“Yes, after major earthquakes it is common to have aftershocks for a few months, sometimes more than a year, until the tectonic plates settle down,” Bozdag explained.
“It is also possible that earthquakes can increase the stress at the continuation of the faults or nearby faults, which may trigger other earthquakes.”
Does climate change affect seismic activity?
“We don’t have such an observation, but likely not, as the primary source of seismic activity is generated by internal processes,” Bozdag said.
Could the earthquakes lead to further catastrophic natural disasters in the region?
Two men watch the rubble removal process in Hatay. (Mehmet Kacmaz/Getty Images)
“After such large earthquakes, we observe aftershocks that gradually decrease,” Bozdag said. “Then a certain amount of time is needed to accumulate the same amount of stress to generate similar earthquakes in the region. So it is unlikely to have large earthquakes at the same locations now.
“But,” she said, “the catastrophe is directly related to the quality of buildings. If the region is prepared well, is following the rules and getting feedback from science and engineering experts, then the next large earthquake does not need to be catastrophic.”
Was it predicted that the original earthquake was going to happen? If so, were people warned?
Smoke and collapsed buildings in Iskenderun on Feb. 7. (Burak Kara/Getty Images)
“We cannot predict earthquakes, which means we cannot say an earthquake will happen at this location, at this time, with this magnitude,” she said. “However, we pretty much know the faults and monitor the seismic activity regularly, so that we know where we should expect earthquakes and associated magnitudes reasonably well.”
How can Turkey plan for further earthquakes to prevent less death and destruction?
Survivors in front of destroyed buildings in Hatay on Feb. 8. (Ugur Yildirim/dia images via Getty Images)
“Turkey has the scientific and engineering background to monitor seismic activity and determine seismic hazards,” Bozdag explained. “Turkey also has the appropriate building codes. The problem is happening with the execution of these codes. To mitigate seismic hazards we must build appropriate buildings at appropriate sites, taking the seismic risk into account.
“Naturally, it would be better to build cities on hard rocks rather than on soft sediments where such areas should be used for farming or recreational areas, etc.,” she said. “It is also desirable not to build buildings on fault lines. Unfortunately, the quality of buildings is the main problem in Turkey, which becomes even worse because they are built on soft materials such as sedimentary basins, which amplifies the intensity.”
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