Category: Drought_CN PATA_West_Drought_2022_related

America’s largest rivers are reaching their lowest levels ever, threatening water access for millions. CBS News anchor Anne-Marie Green breaks down the ongoing water scarcity crisis.

Wes Harmon’s ringtone sounds like a steam whistle, and it goes off in the cab of his Ford Super Duty at such regularity and volume it practically shudders the rooster-in-a-hula-skirt affixed to his dash.

The strange, barren spots pepper the vast Namib Desert, which stretches from southern Angola to northern South Africa. They are known as “fairy circles,” and for a natural phenomenon with such a whimsical name, scientific debates over their origins have been heated.

The Mississippi River is flowing at its lowest level in at least a decade, and until rain relieves a worsening drought in the region, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to maintain water levels high enough to carry critical exports from the nation’s bread basket.

Drought that stretched across three continents this summer — drying out large parts of Europe, the United States and China — was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study. Drought dried up major rivers, destroyed crops, sparked wildfire, threatened aquatic species and led to water restrictions in Europe. It struck places already plagued by drying in the U.S., like the West, but also places where drought is more rare, like the Northeast. China also just had its driest summer in 60 years, leaving its famous Yangtze river half its normal width.

Western Central Europe, North America, China, and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere faced water shortages, extreme heat, and soil moisture drought conditions throughout the summer of 2022

National TV, cable, and other mass media outlets have been brimming with news that much of the American West is into its longest drought in 1,200 years. What does this mean for some of the country’s biggest rivers?

In June 2021, Marlene and Emron Esplin stopped watering their front lawn. Given that the Esplins live in Utah, where maintaining lush green turf is often associated with the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy, the decision to let their grass go brown was a radical act.

These days it can feel almost cliche to throw around the word “dystopian.” But it's hard not to use it while standing on the narrow road crossing the Hoover Dam as tourists gawk at the hulking structure's exposed columns that for decades were underwater.

Typically, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP) starts its North American wildfires profile in the summer or even fall. However, as climate change increasingly has a more significant impact, we have been losing the concept of disaster seasons.