One of the basic fundamentals of climate change, around the world, will be drought. A warmer climate intuits a drier world. There will be more fires. Climate change in some areas will mean the opposite - floods, erratic weather, violent storms. But overall, deserts can be expected to grow - they already are.
SALT LAKE CITY - Seven Western states will face more water shortages in the years ahead as climate change exacerbates the strains drought and a growing population have put on the Colorado River, scientists say.
"Clearly we're on a collision course between supply and demand," said Brad Udall, director of the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado.
'Simply not sustainable'
Several models by different scientists have made predictions about the future flow of the Colorado, all of which forecast less water, said Tim Barnett, one of the Scripps study's authors. The prospect of warming temperatures only increases the strain on an already strained system, he said.
"The current usage is simply not sustainable," Barnett said.
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