Great Plains aquifers are disappearing! If we lose these aquifers, we lose nearly 20% of the world’s grain crop, >40% of our nation’s beef production and about 40% of vegetables, nuts, and fruits consumed in the US

Strange Sounds – December 26, 2021

The next disaster coming to the Great Plains is currently playing. Acute scarcity drives the search for water underground. But the West’s major aquifers are in trouble, too.

A century after the Dust Bowl, another environmental catastrophe is coming to the High Plains of western Kansas. The signs are subtle but unequivocal: dry riverbeds, fields of sand, the sound of irrigation motors straining to pump from dwindling aquifers.

We face a fundamental choice,” Connie Owen, the director of the Kansas Water Office, said to a group of state legislators, lobbyists, groundwater managers, and experts who assembled here last summer to debate the future of the region’s groundwater, now in steep decline due to overuse by industrial agriculture. “What hangs in the balance is even more than the loss of livelihoods, communities, or an entire region’s economy—it is the character of who we want to be as a people.

Similar conversations are under way across the American West, as an unprecedented water crisis comes into sharp focus. It is no secret that one of the worst droughts in 1,000 years is intensifying heat waves and megafires; that historic drops in surface-water levels coincide with historic spikes in demand as the region grows hotter, drier, and more populated; or that conflicts are escalating over who gets to use how much of what remains. Acute scarcity drives the search for water underground. But the West’s major aquifers are in trouble, too.

Aquifers are essential resources for human survival. Groundwater provides the only source of drinking water for one-third of the world’s people and supports nearly half of the planet’s irrigated agriculture. Yet far more groundwater is being pumped out than can be naturally replenished. Most dry-area aquifers are vanishing.

https://strangesounds.org

Return Of The Dust Bowl? The “Megadrought” In The Southwest Is Really Starting To Escalate

– August 28, 2020

Much of the southwestern portion of the United States has been gripped by a drought that never seems to end, and there is a tremendous amount of concern that patterns that we witnessed back during the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s may be starting to repeat.  In a previous article, I discussed the extreme heat that we have been seeing in the region lately.  Phoenix has never had more days in a year when the high temperature has hit at least 115 degrees, and other southwestern cities have been smashing records as well.  At the same time, precipitation levels have been very low, and the combination of these two factors is starting to cause some major problems.

A couple of weeks ago, NASA posted an article on their official website about the horrible drought conditions that we are now witnessing…

As the United States moves into the last weeks of climatological summer, one-third of the country is experiencing at least a moderate level of drought. Much of the West is approaching severe drought, and New England has been unusually dry and hot. An estimated 53 million people are living in drought-affected areas.

Since NASA posted that article, things have gotten even worse.  If you go to the U.S. Drought Monitor website, you will instantly see why so many experts are deeply concerned.  The latest map shows that nearly the entire southwestern quadrant of the country is now gripped by either “severe” or “extreme” drought.  Needless to say, this is not good news at all for farmers and ranchers in the region.

Colorado is one of the states that is being hit the hardest.  At this point, more than 93 percent of the entire state is experiencing very serious drought conditions

According to United States Drought Monitor, drought conditions have gotten significantly worse in Colorado in recent days and weeks.

Last week, approximately 72 percent of Colorado was experiencing “severe” drought conditions or worse. This has now jumped to just over 93 percent.

http://endoftheamericandream.com

Western U.S. Is Facing the Worst Megadrought in Over 1,200 Years

Strange Sounds – Apr 18, 2020

In the 1930s, the United States was suffering from the most severe drought in its history, the “Dust Bowl.”

And be prepared to bite the dust once again, because scientists think the Dust Bowl is coming back for a second round. And this time for it could even last during decades.

A new study has used 1,200 years of tree-ring data, soil moisture records, and dozens of climate models to describe the ever-lengthening string of dry spells that have hit the western United States and northern Mexico over recent decades. 

They found that a chronic drought has been lurking around the southwestern US and northern Mexico since at least the year 2000.

The spell of aridity has already become so severe it’s already surpassed three of the four notoriously arid megadroughts of Medieval times.

The researchers were uncertain about the extent of the fourth Medieval megadrought, which spanned from 1575 CE to 1603 CE, although they note the current drought is affecting wider areas more consistently than any megadrought since 800 CE.

We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we’re on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts,” stated lead author Park Williams.

https://strangesounds.org