'A harbinger of what's to come:' NASA satellites show massive drop in global freshwater levels
'A harbinger of what's to come:' NASA satellites show massive drop in global freshwater levels
NASA satellites discovered that Earth's surface has lost enough water to empty Lake Erie two and a half times since 2015. And the problem could be here to stay.
Nations must start to manage water as a global common good,
it's been nice knowing you all
Nestle: We've lobbied governments around the world to
let us own all the fresh waterprotect the fresh water from nefarious actors.:(
I've said it before and I'll say it again, my retirement plan is dying in the potable water riots
Oohh, I remember reading this 40 years ago.
Anyway...
We figured out destroying the ozone layer was probably a bad idea but wasting all the freshwater is a bridge too far I guess.
Climate change terrifies me to be honest. We have seen how under prepared we were as species for covid, this will be so much worse. While we could be doing something about it we still have people who dont believe it or are doubling down on fossil fuels and taking private jets.
😪
It more surprises and saddens me that we are less than 2 generations divorced from when we as a species were able to band together and ban CFCs to address the hole in the Ozone Layer, as well as sulphurous compounds to eliminate Acid Rain - yet we’ve flown right past ‘fuck around’ without seemingly batting an eye, and are barrelling towards ‘find out’ territory when it comes to Climate Change..
For those of us who are alive to read this ... enjoy the liveable environment we have now (never worry about the planet because it will outlast us).
I feel so bad for the those who are not yet born and will grow up to inherit the shit we've allowed to happen.
One of my favorite hobbies used to be river fishing in the local forest preserves.
I’ve taken my wife several times, but now we only catch 1 or 2 fish every trip, where I’d be catching dozens just a decade ago.
The ecosystem is already collapsing around us, I don’t think we have to wait for future generations to experience this shit, it’s happening now. Life will survive, but many of the species that currently exist won’t be around for much longer. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Apparently what happened in the Mad Max future history was that the sea life suddenly started to all die off, then the oceans and lakes all began to dry up, and vast deserts with few survivors remained. They subsist on old canned food and water collected from night dew / wind collectors, and maggots collected in farms of rotting stuff. Info from the MM game, which apparently was decided to be a canon entry in the series.
This sucks
One of the major platform legs of libertarians is the privatization of water
...I vote we decide on a climate landmark to establish the initiation of the global end of the world party. Anything that's currently illegal due to longer term consequences goes into 'fuck it!' territory. Drugs of all kinds completely legalized; conditions that contraindicate using those drugs like pregnancy are ignored. Social standards around things like sex are dissolved (other than consent - that stays). Just nonstop hedonism, feasting, drinking, fucking, etc while supplies last.
Then when supplies run out, we all hit the big red button at the same time. Nukes. All of them. Detonated in as close a synchronization as we can get them, and our failure of species goes out in as painless as possible of an instant flash.
.....I mean, it's that or slow-burn to death anyway, we got nothing to lose.
Just try organizing a militia and you will find how oppressed we already are
The only thing that works now is indiscriminate attacks on the wealthy, it's the only thing they won't see coming
And that's why I'll never leave the Great Lakes region.
dont you want to live somewhere that water is geographically higher than you?
This article is better https://phys.org/news/2024-11-nasa-satellites-reveal-abrupt-global.html
The associated research article is also a good read, for the statistics behind this multi-year drought: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10712-024-09860-w
Where are they implying it went? Did it evaporate out into space? Was it absorbed into the earth's crust? Or is it just becoming unpotable - and if that, how does the change in earth's wobble that they use to make this claim imply that water has lost it's freshness?
There are over 8 billion people on earth. People drink, wash, and shit in multiple litres of water daily. Crops require water. Livestock requires water. We slaughter several edit:
Trillion (with a T)billion livestock globally each year, there is A LOT of livestock. Industry requires water. Industry is trusted not to hoard, pollute or waste water. Water processing and sewage reclamation requires well funded public infrastructure. The hotter our atmosphere is, the more water vapour it will hold.Just some ideas to get you started.
While I agree that water use for livestock it’s a problem. There aren’t anywhere near a trillion livestock to kill. Over dozens of years, maybe, barely, and a vast vast majority of them are going to be chickens.
In 2014 there were 21 billion chickens. A Trillion is 1000 billion. There were less than 1.5 billion cattle and just over a billion sheep the same year and those numbers don’t appear to change drastically. Pork production is down this year for example.
I always assumed that it was a matter of a lack of infrastructure to do water processing and reclamation, and or just it takes time for water to cycle back around to being fresh water. I never thought about how a shift in climate means the air holds on to more water.
Goes to show, despite it being bad news, you really do learn something new everyday.
I understand the basic overuse and mismanagement :) All of these things are true and quantifiable to a point - But I did mean to ask how was this measurement indicative of a specific amount of despoiled water, if all that satellite measures is relative changes in gravitational motion. A re-read of the article and this segment seems to have answered the question - "dumping more rain in faster and more powerful storms that are more likely to run off than to seep into drier and more compact surfaces." which seems to mean it was indeed being absorbed instead of staying in sloshy bits on the surface or becoming atmospheric, therefore causing detectable gravitational wobble.
Thanks though, for the clarification.