Climate Crisis AM Edition 1.25.24 Amazon Exceptional Drought
The Amazon River and the forests around it have been badly damaged by drought. In a new study by the World Weather Attribution, scientists stated that the river’s level is at its lowest in 120 years. This affects 30 million people in central South America who rely on the river for water, transportation, and power generation. It has also endangered many species. El Niño was characterized as the primary cause of these problems. The paper’s primary conclusion: “Since mid-2023, the Amazon River Basin (ARB) has been in a state of exceptional drought, driven by low rainfall and consistently high temperatures for the entire year 2023 across the basin.”
Key climate news: Wildfires Pose A $761 Billion Threat To California
Another threat: The Doomsday Clock Measured In Seconds Again In 2024
Climate change has hurt America’s $235 billion fishing industry, according to the testimony of several experts before a Senate committee. Rashid Sumaila, a University Killam professor and research chair at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, pointed to rising sea levels as threatening fish populations. “So lots of dollars, and the contribution to America’s [gross domestic product] is estimated to be over $110 billion a year, which supports 1.7 million American jobs in the marine sector. Huge, huge benefits to everybody,” he commented.
Military Base Hit By Wave
A huge wave that swamped an island in the Pacific that houses an army base was caused by climate change, according to several experts. A third of Roi-Namor, located in the Kwajalein Atoll in the northern Marshall Islands, was pushed underwater, which caused considerable damage to military operations. The NOAA said that the wave was well above the size of normal wave activity.
A study published in Nature, titled “Rapid Groundwater Decline and Some Cases of Recovery in Aquifers Globally,” said that much of the world’s underground water has disappeared and will continue in many parts of the world. The study examined groundwater-level activity in 170,000 monitoring wells and 1,693 aquifer systems. The countries analyzed have about 75% of global groundwater withdrawals. The primary cause of this was described as irrigation. The authors wrote, “Irrigation is estimated to account for 70% of global groundwater withdrawals.”
More from ClimateCrisis 247
- Jeff Bezos To Underwrite Climate AI
- Birds Eat So Much Plastic That They Crunch
- Rising Oceans Could Force 230 Million People To Move
- American Air Conditioning Costs To Be Hit By Global Warming
