Climate Crisis 'Wreaking Havoc' on Earth's Water Cycle, Report Finds (theguardian.com)
- Reference: 0175839469
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/01/06/1522257/climate-crisis-wreaking-havoc-on-earths-water-cycle-report-finds
- Source link: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/06/climate-crisis-wreaking-havoc-on-earths-water-cycle-report-finds
> Water is people's most vital natural resource but global heating is changing the way water moves around the Earth. The analysis of water disasters in 2024, which was the hottest year on record, found they had killed at least 8,700 people, driven 40 million from their homes and caused economic damage of more than $550bn.
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> Rising temperatures, caused by continued burning of fossil fuels, disrupt the water cycle in multiple ways. Warmer air can hold more water vapour, leading to more intense downpours. Warmer seas provide more energy to hurricanes and typhoons, supercharging their destructive power. Global heating can also increase drought by causing more evaporation from soil, as well as shifting rainfall patterns.
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> Deadly flash floods hit Nepal and Brazil in 2024, while river flooding caused devastation in central Europe, China and Bangladesh. Super Typhoon Yagi, which struck south-east Asia in September, was intensified by the climate crisis, as was Storm Boris which hit Europe the same month. Droughts also caused major damage, with crop production in southern Africa halving, causing more than 30 million people to face food shortages. Farmers were also forced to cull livestock as their pastures dried up, and falling output from hydropower dams led to widespread blackouts.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/06/climate-crisis-wreaking-havoc-on-earths-water-cycle-report-finds
Re: (Score:2)
Rebutal: [1]https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
Clearly if you choose 2008 as the starting point of your trend line you can get a decreasing trend line that "goes back decades" (if you call 16 years "decades") ... but global warming did not start in 2008. The trend of non-outlier years is clearly increasing.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41888-1
Re: (Score:2)
That isn't a rebuttal. It's counting of total costs. What is not counted is reduction of the costs if trendline wasn't what it is.
You don't even need to read more than two paragraphs of abstract to conclude this. They're openly stating it themselves:
> While a part of this increase is due to increased reporting of disaster damage (especially in lower-income countries/regions or countries/regions that were previously more isolated), and because of increased exposure brought about by population growth and in
Nothing good ... (Score:2)
... ever came from a [1]huge flood [freepik.com].
[1] https://img.freepik.com/premium-vector/cartoon-noah-ark-with-animals_29190-7755.jpg
This is no great shock (Score:2)
We know from previous civilisations, such as the Maya and Khmer, that altering the environment drastically alters rainfall before almost anything else. It is extremely sensitive.
This will worsen, and it will worsen quickly. Rainfall in some areas will simply stop, and in other areas will worsen dramatically.
Britain is actually experiencing almost the reverse. About a third of Britain is temperate rainforest, but the forests largely vanished for fuel and to build giant fleets of wooden warships. So here in t
So, what is the new water cycle ? (Score:2)
With global warming more water is evaporating from the oceans, and flooding seems understandable since the velocity of the water cycle is faster.
What's the hand-wavy explanation for an increased level of droughts? Why is global warming apparently causing rain to fall in different places than it normally would (causing droughts in some areas, floods in others) ?
The way we manage water is wreaking havoc (Score:2)
In the USA, we cut down trees, pave the land over, and jam it full of high density housing and strip malls, ie no permeability. We funnel the storm water into concrete sewers and fast track it into the ocean. The result is less ground water replacement as we pump our aquifers dry. Of course, we pump our aquifers and then fast track that water into the oceans as well. Make that make sense.
Re: (Score:1)
That is very wrong. I would suggest looking into everything you stated.
Re: (Score:2)
It fits pretty well everything I saw in Washington State, Oregon, Virginia, and South Carolina. That's obviously not the country as a whole, so I can't verify it entirely, but it does seem a very accurate reflection of reality.
Re: (Score:2)
Reality check - the USA has a lot of undeveloped / fallowed land. While to much hardscape certainly creates a lot of local problems, I don't think more broadly it is likely driving aquifer depletion, at least with respect to the continents as a whole.
You don't like high density housing, what you suggest as an alternative more lower density housing and more sprawl. That still means a lot of habitat destruction and environmental problems even many types of wildlife can share ex-urban environments with us.
Whi
Re: (Score:2)
Make this make sense. We have people that pave over tobacco fields to cover the land in solar PV panels, then celebrate this as "green".
People don't like tobacco? That's fine, but not a reason to cover it in concrete so nothing can grow there. Plant strawberries there instead. Or cotton. Or corn. Or anything, just don't turn productive land into a so called "solar farm".
I know someone is itching to reply with "agri-voltaics", that there's ways to plant your solar panels and eat your strawberries too.