Global Warming Is Draining the Waters of Life

[marmar]

This Creative Commons-licensed piece first appeared at Climate News Network.

LONDON—Up to two billion people who depend on winter snow to deliver their summer water could see shortages by 2060 as upland and mountain snowpacks continue to dwindle.

An estimated 300 million people could find, 45 years on, that they simply won’t have enough water for all their needs, according to new research.

Climate change driven by rising atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide—in turn, fed by human combustion of fossil fuels—may already be affecting global precipitation. Researchers have consistently found that much of the world’s drylands will increase as global average temperatures rise.

But warmer temperatures increasingly also mean the water that once fell as snow, to be preserved until the summer, now falls as winter rain, and runs off directly. The snow that does fall is settling at ever higher altitudes and melting ever earlier. .......................(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/global_warming_drains_the_waters_of_life_20151114