Transpiration from plants dominates the terrestrial water cycle.
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Water + Climate
Sometime, about one year from now, the front pages of whatever decent newspapers are left will carry a headline like the one above, announcing that for the first time in human existence (or in nearly a million years, or 3 million years, or 15 million years), the global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide — the principal gas causing climate change — will have passed 400 parts per million.
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Drought and reduced winter ice cover are contributing to declining water levels in the Great Lakes. As lakes Michigan and Huron hit record lows, a new report outlines what changes like this could mean for the region’s flora and fauna.
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The drought that set upon the United States this year has tightened a three-state tug-of-war over fresh water, affecting marine life and a valuable fishing economy downstream in the Deep South’s Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, the most biodiverse river system in North America.
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A new report out of the United Kingdom’s academic world concludes that droughts can cause sharp declines in the number of species in a stream. Additionally, there is the potential for partial collapse of aquatic food webs.
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Monsoon rainfall is 14 percent below average in India, which depends on rainwater to feed more than 50 percent of its agricultural land.
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With freighters forced to carry lighter loads, port structures damaged by rot, ship cannels that are filling with silt, there are millions of dollars in losses, repairs, and dredging — but scientists are working on adaptation solutions and planning resilience.
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Poor rains have led to crop failures in Somalia, and the threat of food price increases could push parts of the country back into famine. Meanwhile, there is little relief for those who fled to neighboring Kenya, as the refugee camps there are facing water shortages.
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Droughts have struck food-producing regions in the United States, Russia, China, North Korea, and South Korea, raising the prospect of higher commodity prices and localized food shortages.
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Even before it started, the global freshwater crisis was a focus of the 10-day Rio+20 summit that ended on June 22. In fact, UN-Water hosted “Water Day” on June 19, the day before the three-day high level UN conference that culminated the summit
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Surface water allocations last year were 10 percent of normal, but record levels of groundwater pumping buoyed production in the state’s top agricultural region.
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As water availability data starts coming in, this year’s water allocations and the potential consequences for irrigation, hydropower, wildfires, and flooding are being assessed — La Niña weather patterns have returned this year, but water supply conditions generally are not as extreme as they were 2011.
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Dry times in southeastern England are seasoned with the favorite flavors of leaders in the arid American West: drought declarations, water restrictions, a desalination plant, and talk of piping “surplus” water to the south.
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Adapting to climate change in the U.S., according to one estimate, will cost at least a half trillion dollars over the next four decades.
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Decades of groundwater pumping have left one of the San Luis Valley aquifers in a perilous state. To restore its health — and the foundation of the local economy — valley leaders are developing a plan to pay farmers to fallow up to 16,000 hectares. But with commodity prices soaring, will anyone go for it, or will the state have to step in?
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At the forefront of a national trend, this region is already suffering from intense conflicts that willy only worsen with climate change and population growth. However, the report also highlights several ways to dramatically reduce the water requirements for electricity generation.
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A new study has revealed that ice volume in the Arctic Sea reached an all-time low in 2010. Meanwhile, in the United States, more high-temperature records have been set this summer than in any other year previously, as well as many regions that have broken rainfall and drought records.
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Meteorologists are hopeful for future rainfall, though they say the current disaster was preventable. The lack of rain, which is also affecting neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, and political instability have tipped Somalia into a food crisis that could persist, even as drought conditions abate.
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Posted on Tuesday, February 26, 2013
One of the most important and threatening risks of climate change is sea-level rise (SLR).