Climate change and population growth in the United States will make having enough fresh water more challenging in the coming years, an expert on water shortages said on Wednesday. “In 1985-1986 there were historical (water level) highs and now in less than 25 years we are at historical lows. Those sorts of swings are very scary,” said Robert Glennon, speaking at the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference in Erie, Pennsylvania. Glennon, a professor at Arizona State University and the author of “Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It,” said that that according to climate experts, shorter, warmer winters mean less ice and greater exposure to the air, leading eventually to more water evaporation. “We think about water like the air — infinite and inexhaustible but it is very finite and very exhaustible,” Glennon said. “When you have a shorter ice season you have great exposure to the air and more evaporation. As temperatures go up it is very troubling,” Glennon said. “The cycles are going to become more acute which is very troubling.”

Originally posted here:
Climate change and population growth making US water problems worse

Related Issues:

• Organic Aerosols
  An aerosol is a colloid suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas. Examples are clouds, and air pollution such as smog and smoke In a suburb of smoggy Los Angeles, University of California experts are providing a likely answer to a sticky scientific problem. ...
• New CO2 Sucker Could Help Clear the Air
  Researchers in California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air. Down the road, the new material could enable the development of large-scale batteries and even form the basis of "artificial trees" that lower atmospher...
• Climate talks mean life or death for island states
  So while climate change delegates haggle over deadlines, binding targets and finance, some of the world's poorest states are warning that rising sea levels and storms will sweep them away unless the world agrees to tackle global warning. "We will be one of the first countries to ...
• Drought-stricken Pacific island nation Tuvalu down to last few days of water
  The drought-stricken Pacific island nation of Tuvalu is down to its last few days of water, prompting a mercy dash by New Zealand and Australia with water-making equipment. Tuvalu, the world's fourth-smallest nation sitting just below the Equator, has declared a state of emergenc...
• Ancient Fossil Aquifers and NASA
  A NASA-led team has used radar sounding technology developed to explore the subsurface of Mars to create high-resolution maps of freshwater aquifers buried deep beneath an Earth desert, in the first use of airborne sounding radar for aquifer mapping. The research may help scienti...