The water table is dropping all over the world as global drought approaches, NASA warns

California isn't the only place experiencing severe drought and the depletion of their water aquafier.

Twenty-one of the world’s 37 largest aquifers — in locations from India and China to the United States and France — have passed their sustainability tipping points, meaning more water is being removed than replaced from these vital underground reservoirs. Thirteen of 37 aquifers fell at rates that put them into the most troubled category.

“The situation is quite critical,” said Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the studies’ principal investigator.

NASA warns water table dropping all over the world



This is bad news because the more droughts were are experiencing, we are also drilling into these reservoirs and taking the water out for our own needs. I sure don't want to see a future where we're paying high dollars for water as another precious resource, but we're already on course for that as we pay for bottled water and a monthly water bill when you live in a city. The only way that these reservoirs replenish themselves is from snow melt and rain, but if these droughts continue like they are, then there's very little replenishment and we continue to use the water. What's the next inevitable step? Water will become like gold, a commodity traded on the NYSE.

And it’s difficult to see it getting better soon. These groundwater reserves take thousands of years to accumulate and only slowly recharge with water from snowmelt and rains. Now, as drilling for water has taken off across the globe, the hidden water reservoirs are being stressed. Underground aquifers supply 35 percent of the water used by humans worldwide. Demand is even greater in times of drought. Rain-starved California is currently tapping aquifers for 60 percent of its water use, up from the usual 40 percent.

And the next step....

We'll be fighting wars, invading other countries...for water!

In another finding from the studies led by the University of California Irvine, scientists say that some of these aquifers may be much smaller than previously thought. Only a few of the aquifers have been mapped in detail and most estimates of aquifer water reserves have “uncertainty ranges across orders of magnitude,” according to the studies.

They say that some of these aquifers may be smaller than they thought which is even more dire, but since they haven't been entirely mapped, let's hope they are wrong about some of them being as small as they thought as well and maybe some of them are much bigger. We can only hope, right?

One of the positives in this in regards to global warming is that while it may be creating these extreme heat waves and droughts it's also responsible for massive rain events as we've seen lately. The warming of the planet creates more moisture and this will cause more heavy rain events in other parts of the world that aren't experiencing drought. Or massive relief to a drought like what we've seen in Texas.

a reply to: Rezlooper


Thanks for the good news, too! Maybe the Earth self-corrects?
Very informative post, though distressing somewhat.

Natural cycles of Earth brings such things as extremes of climate. There is cyclical global warming. Humanity however has the technology to counteract a lot of the issues, if it applies intelligence correctly instead of spewing agenda politics.

There is the vast potential to desalinate sea water for many purposes such as irrigation, cooling and many industrial uses; creating micro climates; harvesting rainwater etc.

I cant help but think this is somehow connected to Nestles desire to privatize the worlds water and puts use in the hands of a few corporations.

While I feel water is wasted en masse the world over, particularly desert areas like Vegas, LA, Israel, the NSA building in Utah ( uses a bazillion gallons a day to cool puters holding our private lives).

I feel a global control is going to be established on every part of our lives if we arent careful. The government and big international corporations dont seembto have to play by the same rules...ifbthis is indeed true, Ill bet the aforementioned dont change their usage...just us sheep, of course we will pay a serious premium as well.





a reply to: Rezlooper

Desalination is not viable...brine kills off huge areas of sea life when it is reintroduced to the ocean.
reply to: theabsolutetruth

The real problem here is we are taking more water and trapping it..
imagine all the bottled water in the world, soft drinks, juices, tinned food, car radiators, central heating systems, swimming pools... The list is endless.
The more fresh water we trap the less there is in natural sources.. This will have a knock on effect.

originally posted by: BlueJacket
I cant help but think this is somehow connected to Nestles desire to privatize the worlds water and puts use in the hands of a few corporations.

While I feel water is wasted en masse the world over, particularly desert areas like Vegas, LA, Israel, the NSA building in Utah ( uses a bazillion gallons a day to cool puters holding our private lives).

I feel a global control is going to be established on every part of our lives if we arent careful. The government and big international corporations dont seembto have to play by the same rules...ifbthis is indeed true, Ill bet the aforementioned dont change their usage...just us sheep, of course we will pay a serious premium as well.





a reply to: Rezlooper

That's the last thing we need to do is put water into the hands of corporations. They do nothing but F things up in this world, but sadly, you may be right and that's where we're heading.

a reply to: BlueJacket

Who said anything about reintroducing brine to the ocean?

There are uses for salt.

With earths population rising every year, something must be done to ensure the next generations and ours isnt the last. Water is King, when it comes to resources. Blue gold, and I believe eventually it will all be tapped and monitored for consumption, but it wont be free. This is dire, although I live in an area that just recieved over 8 inches of rain last few days, it doesnt matter. We are all interconnected somehow, and we all depend on eachother, food, water, farming, manufacturing, etc...... Not good. some would want his to happen for money

Its actually the standard practice my friend.




a reply to: theabsolutetruth

originally posted by: Misterlondon
The real problem here is we are taking more water and trapping it..
imagine all the bottled water in the world, soft drinks, juices, tinned food, car radiators, central heating systems, swimming pools... The list is endless.
The more fresh water we trap the less there is in natural sources.. This will have a knock on effect.

And I think we are going to really start seeing the effects of this in the near future. Some of these hardest hit areas may need to import water and then yes, this will cost money and we'll see the start of the corporations getting their hands on this precious resource. But I guess who else is going to do it. Should it be government or corporations?

originally posted by: theabsolutetruth
Natural cycles of Earth brings such things as extremes of climate. There is cyclical global warming. Humanity however has the technology to counteract a lot of the issues, if it applies intelligence correctly instead of spewing agenda politics.

There is the vast potential to desalinate sea water for many purposes such as irrigation, cooling and many industrial uses; creating micro climates; harvesting rainwater etc.

Mankind is very inventive especially when it comes to times of real trouble . My only thought is , I hope they do not have a knee jerk reaction and overdo it. I could see us bringing on another mini-ice age with some of the plans that I have read about.

youtu.be...

We're flooded in our area, and it's a good thing many companies have developed the tech to desalinate the water on the cheap over the last 15 years. The problem will be implementing this in time, properly scaling and distributing to remote areas. I think some fat cats will allow the problem to fester some before being the corporate saviors of local lands.

a reply to: BlueJacket

I know about standard practice, you are perhaps referring to this process:

www.lenntech.com...

As I said there are ways if the intelligence is applied correctly and with innovation. The salt can be used for many purposes.

Even for reintroducing brine to the sea, only certain habitats are affected and recommendations are on an individual basis.

Seems to me Drought stricken governments will have to start making plans to capture and store flood waters, if it means some people will have to move, they should be compensated to the full amount, which wont cost as much as the whole capture storage costs, I think it will have to be done, I have two rain butts, having serious thoughts about a third, and getting a collection system fitted to my work shed.
Be less politically unwelcome than collecting dead bodies to incinerate.
Or water riots, and food riots.
All that fresh water draining off the Greenland ice sheet, why is that not being collected into tankers?
Just what is up with the so called 'planning departments' of world governments?

a reply to: Rezlooper

We'll be fighting wars, invading other countries...for water!

To me that statement is not a worry . Any war would pale in comparison to a worldwide drought and the famine it would bring .

In the 1960s 40 million Chinese died from drought and famine . Mother nature will have her revenge on us if drought does occur .

a reply to: Rezlooper
Thought you might find these interesting.



Explanation:

Wait a minute... I thought the oceans were rising? Now the water level is dropping too?

Less rainfall... but i thought we were supposed to get worse storms and more rainfall?

OK, OK, back to serious.

I don't know about the rest of the globe, but I have a pretty good idea what's going on in North America lately. Some time back I started keeping a log of the recorded daily lows, highs, and averages for the closest NOAA observatory... in no small part a result of one of those uncharacteristically cold winters we seem to get here lately. That graph led me to realize there was an anomaly happening, so I started trying to find out what was really happening. I found the cause, and it ties in with the California drought. For some reason, the jet stream is twisting itself into a knot.

The weather pattern here used to be that the majority of weather patterns flowed form west to east. Air came in from the Pacific, rose as it got to the Sierra Nevada, and dropped all that snow. The heat then swept through my area (the Southeast) and kept us fairly warm. There were regular fluctuations, but all were short-lived and relatively minor. Alberta Clippers, those systems that regularly affect the Midwest each winter, were pretty much a curiosity here, because most would not even brush us and those that did would barely do so.

Presently, there appears to be a high pressure system that forms regularly across the Southwest and blocks this pattern. Instead winds from the pacific are blowing north into Alaska/Canada, twisting into an Alberta Clipper, and descending straight down into the Deep South, bringing frigid air with it. This aberration is not temporary; it tends to stay in place for months at a time. The other effect this has is that the prevailing winds across the Sierra Nevada are not moving in off the Pacific anymore... they're moving more from the south. and one more effect... this means that the warm moist air that was once blowing into California during the winter is now flowing up into the Arctic Circle.

Arctic melt, anyone?

There could be a partial explanation with the Gulf of Mexico itself. A high pressure area there would effectiovely shift the Jet Stream farther north, but could it cause the initial twist up and away from California/ I don't know, but it doesn't sound likely to me.

So I still don't know what is causing this phenomenon at its source, but I have identified that it exists, and that it does cycle on and off over a period of months. Our extremely cold winters are when the cycle starts up in the winter; cooler-than-normal summers occur when it starts up in the summer months. On the flip side, we have warm winters and blazing hot summers when the cycle stops... actually a little warmer (though perhaps not statistically significant) than normal.

This also ties in with something I learned a couple years ago on this board. It is well-established that the current flowing through the Bering Straits into the Arctic is warmer than normal. So far I haven't been able to find a good solid reason why this is, but it does coincide with the warmer air flow from the warping of the Jet Stream.

That's the explanation for one area of drought... as to the others, I have a hard time believeing the water table is dropping globally. It just doesn't make sense. What's happening to the water? The ocean level is not rising (people are not being foced to vacate seaside residences en masse globally), we are told that ice melts are decreasing (true about the Arctic), and now water tables are dropping worldwide. Is someone from an alien ship siphoning water off the planet?

I dunno, I keep looking at changes in weather patterns, and I keep being told to not believe what I see, that the opposite is happening. NASA or no, I'll go with what my eyes see.

TheRedneck