Analysis: The Dry Weather This Year (South Africa)

For September 2007 the western, southern and eastern parts of the country show dry conditions; where even severely to extremely dry conditions were experienced in parts of the Western and Eastern Cape provinces.

Somewhat to moderately dry conditions were experienced over the southern, central and eastern parts, but severely dry over the central part of Mpumalanga for the three months from July to September 2007. Over the six-month period from April to September 2007 most parts of South Africa experienced somewhat to moderately dry conditions, most severe in the central parts of the Northern Cape, parts of the Eastern Cape and smaller areas in northern KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.

The 12- and 24-month SPI maps gives a good idea of areas where prolonged droughts exist because of below-normal rainfall recorded over a period of one year or longer. Most of the interior of the country is somewhat to moderately dry, with some areas that are experiencing severely dry conditions, most noteworthy the central part of the Northern Cape, southern Limpopo into Mpumalanga in the west, eastern Mpumalanga in the Kruger National Park, and isolated areas in the North-West and Free State provinces.

Source: Weathersa.co.za

In New Zealand: Eastern drought comes with $700m price tag

USA Faces Exceptional Drought Crisis

And it is worsening. In 5 years 36 States are projected to experience catastrophic water shortages. Not 50 years, not 15 years, 5 years.

To appreciate how serious the conditions have become, notice how large the BLACK area is in the graphic above. These are large areas that are exceptionally and unusually dry.

To watch a video on the drought crisis in the US, go here.
Meanwhile consider this 2 year old CNN article below: UK scientists slam U.S. climate loonies. Loonies because they were arguing that the 'exceptional' hurricane season was not related to human activity, and that warming wasn't a certainty. It amounted to entrophy, all that dilly dallying and flip flopping. Right now, right now in the world, in everything we do, delay matters.

Farmer's around the world are going to have to learn how to conjure crops as weather becomes erratic, transitioning from droughts to floods to storms and all the way back and forth, again and again.

Nature: The Future is Drying Up (NYT)

“There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster,” Chu said, “and that’s in the best scenario.”
By JON GERTNER

Scientists sometimes refer to the effect a hotter world will have on this country’s fresh water as the other water problem, because global warming more commonly evokes the specter of rising oceans submerging our great coastal cities. By comparison, the steady decrease in mountain snowpack — the loss of the deep accumulation of high-altitude winter snow that melts each spring to provide the American West with most of its water — seems to be a more modest worry. But not all researchers agree with this ranking of dangers.

Last May, for instance, Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the United States government’s pre-eminent research facilities, remarked that diminished supplies of fresh water might prove a far more serious problem than slowly rising seas. When I met with Chu last summer in Berkeley, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which provides most of the water for Northern California, was at its lowest level in 20 years.

Chu noted that even the most optimistic climate models for the second half of this century suggest that 30 to 70 percent of the snowpack will disappear. “There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster,” Chu said, “and that’s in the best scenario.”

In the Southwest this past summer, the outlook was equally sobering. A catastrophic reduction in the flow of the Colorado River — which mostly consists of snowmelt from the Rocky Mountains — has always served as a kind of thought experiment for water engineers, a risk situation from the outer edge of their practical imaginations. Some 30 million people depend on that water. A greatly reduced river would wreak chaos in seven states: Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California.

An almost unfathomable legal morass might well result, with farmers suing the federal government; cities suing cities; states suing states; Indian nations suing state officials; and foreign nations (by treaty, Mexico has a small claim on the river) bringing international law to bear on the United States government.

For the rest of this New York Times article go here.
Image courtesy Simon Norfolk/NB Pictures, for The New York Times.

NVDL: So you begin to notice the convergence of these unexpected strains on human populations (which Kunstler describes as 'converging catastropjes'.) Not having fresh water is obviously ANOTHER fundamental flaw to a society that plans to continue to flourish, or simply remain self-indulgent. When you follow the information streaming in, it turns out we are not as smart - as a species - not nearly, as we thought. For that we will pay our price.

Climate Alert: South's Thirst Sets In

NVDL: 4 million Americans depend on Lake that may be dry in 90 days.

ATLANTA, Oct. 15 — For the first time in more than 100 years, much of the [American]Southeast has reached the most severe category of drought, climatologists said Monday, creating an emergency so serious that some cities are just months away from running out of water.

From Drought-Stricken South Facing Tough Choices, a New York Times article.
In North Carolina, Gov. Michael F. Easley asked residents Monday to stop using water for any purpose “not essential to public health and safety.” He warned that he would soon have to declare a state of emergency if voluntary efforts fell short.

“Now I don’t want to have to use these powers,” Mr. Easley told a meeting of mayors and other city officials. “As leaders of your communities, you know what works best at the local level. I am asking for your help.”

Officials in the central North Carolina town of Siler City estimate that without rain, they are 80 days from draining the Lower Rocky River Reservoir, which supplies water for the town’s 8,200 people.

In the Atlanta metropolitan area, which has more than four million people, worst-case analyses show that the city’s main source of water, Lake Lanier, could be drained dry in 90 to 121 days.