West Water Crisis Labeled ‘Megadrought' By Experts
By Sara Jerome,
@sarmje
New research shows that the West has lost about 63 trillion gallons of surface or near-surface water since 2013 as a result of the drought, Mashable reported.
The study, recently published by the journal Science, gave examples to illustrate that this is a staggering amount of surface water.
"We estimate the total deficit to be...equivalent to a 10 cm layer of water over the entire region, or the annual mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet," the abstract of the study says.
The study found that the drought appears to be moving mountains. Drawing on GPS data, it "found that in response to the lack of surface water, land masses across the West have been rising, especially in California's Sierra Nevada Mountain range. In other words, the drought is actually moving mountains," Mashable reported.
Groundwater pumping is also pegged as a cause for movement in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Water Online previously reported.
Water sources around the West are feeling the effects of the drought.
"On August 26, Trinity Lake, which can hold 2.4 million acre-feet of water, had just 29 percent of capacity, and the Shasta reservoir on the Sacramento River had 30 percent of its capacity, according to the California Department of Water Resources. The Oroville reservoir, which can hold 3.5 million acre-feet of water, was at just 31 percent of capacity," the report said.
Experts are labeling this weather as a "megadrought."
“The current drought could be classified as a megadrought — 13 years running,” according to paleoclimatologist Edward Cook, a director at a Columbia University observatory, per Climate Central. “There’s no indication it’ll be getting any better in the near term.”
Even the East Coast is experiencing dryness.
"Today, drought or abnormally dry conditions are affecting every state west of the Mississippi River and many on the East Coast, with much of the Southwest under long-term severe, extreme or exceptional drought conditions," the report said.
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