Tag: Drought

Why the Panama Canal Didn’t Lose Money When Ship Crossings Fell

Low water levels have forced officials to slash the number of ships that are allowed through the Panama Canal, disrupting global supply chains and pushing up transportation costs. But, remarkably, the big drop in ship traffic has not — at least so far — led to a financial crunch for the canal, which passes on […]

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Rains Are Scarce in the Amazon. Instead, Megafires Are Raging.

By this time of the year, rain should be drenching large swaths of the Amazon rainforest. Instead, a punishing drought has kept the rains at bay, creating dry conditions for fires that have engulfed hundreds of square miles of the rainforest that do not usually burn. The fires have turned the end of the dry […]

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Canada Braces for Wildfire Season as ‘Zombie Fires’ Blaze

Canada’s emergency preparedness minister is warning that this year’s wildfire season will be worse than the record-breaking season of 2023, when thousands of fires burned tens of millions of acres and set off massive plumes of smoke that enveloped major U.S. cities, including New York and Washington. This year’s fires could be especially bad in […]

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California Rainfall Totals: L.A. Saw a Historically Wet February

February was the wettest month in downtown Los Angeles since 1998. With over 12 inches of rain drenching the city, it was the fourth-wettest February — and the seventh-wettest month overall — in the city’s nearly 150-year recorded history. You can feel the saturation in the soil, Park Williams, a professor and expert in water […]

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A Collapse of the Amazon Could Be Coming ‘Faster Than We Thought’

Up to half of the Amazon rain forest could transform into grasslands or weakened ecosystems in the coming decades, a new study found, as climate change, deforestation and severe droughts like the one the region is currently experiencing damage huge areas beyond their ability to recover. Those stresses in the most vulnerable parts of the […]

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Colombia, Normally a Wet Country, Battles Widespread Wildfires

Helicopters hauling buckets of water fly toward the mountains where fires burn, a thick haze periodically covers the sky, and residents have been ordered to wear masks and limit driving because of the poor air quality. For a full week, firefighters have been battling fires in the mountains around Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, as dozens of […]

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Amazon Drought Was Caused by Climate Change

Climate change fueled the remarkable 2023 drought that drained major rivers, fueled huge wildfires and threatened the livelihoods of millions of people in the Amazon rainforest, scientists said on Wednesday. Deforestation of the Amazon, the world’s largest and most biodiverse rainforest, has decreased rainfall and weakened the ability of trees and soil to retain moisture, […]

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As Switzerland’s Glaciers Shrink, a Way of Life May Melt Away

For centuries, Swiss farmers have sent their cattle, goats and sheep up the mountains to graze in warmer months before bringing them back down at the start of autumn. Devised in the Middle Ages to save precious grass in the valleys for winter stock, the tradition of “summering” has so transformed the countryside into a […]

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California Farms Dried Up a River for Months. Nobody Stopped Them.

During California’s most recent drought, officials went to great lengths to safeguard water supplies, issuing emergency regulations to curb use by thousands of farms, utilities and irrigation districts. It still wasn’t enough to prevent growers in the state’s agricultural heartland from draining dry several miles of a major river for almost four months in 2022, […]

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Drought Touches a Quarter of Humanity, U.N. Says, Disrupting Lives Globally

Pandemic. War. Now drought. Olive groves have shriveled in Tunisia. The Brazilian Amazon faces its driest season in a century. Wheat fields have been decimated in Syria and Iraq, pushing millions more into hunger after years of conflict. The Panama Canal, a vital trade artery, doesn’t have enough water, which means fewer ships can pass […]

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Yacouba Sawadogo, African Farmer Who Held Back the Desert, Dies at 77

Yacouba Sawadogo, a farmer known as “the man who beat the desert” in Burkina Faso for revolutionizing agricultural methods and creating a 75-acre forest on barren land, died on Dec. 3 in Ouahigouya, a northern provincial capital in that West African country. He was 77. His death, in a hospital after a long illness, was […]

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Pond in Hawaii Turned Pink, Raising a Red Flag for the Environment

A pond in Hawaii became a social media spectacle this week after turning bubble-gum pink. However, experts said the new hue was not just a photo opportunity but an indicator of environmental stress. Staff members at the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge on Maui have been monitoring the pink water for the last two weeks, […]

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Drought in Syria, Iran and Iraq Made ‘Extreme’ by Global Warming, Attribution Study Says

Human-made climate change is driving a yearslong extreme drought in Iran, Iraq and Syria, an area that encompasses a region known as the Fertile Crescent and a cradle of civilization, scientists said on Wednesday. The scientists stressed that years of conflict and political instability combined with the challenges of rapid urbanization in the region have […]

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Wildfires Burn for Days in Southern U.S. States

Wildfires caused by drought, warmer-than-normal temperatures and, in a few cases, possibly arson have been ablaze for days in several Southern states. The threat has led officials to enact burn bans and to stop issuing safe-burn permits. November is the peak month of the fire season across the country, but certain areas, including parts of […]

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Drought Saps the Panama Canal, Disrupting Global Trade

For over a century, the Panama Canal has provided a convenient way for ships to move between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, helping to speed up international trade. But a drought has left the canal without enough water, which is used to raise and lower ships, forcing officials to slash the number of vessels they […]

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The Water Wars Deciding the Future of the West

Robert Glennon served on a recent commission that studied using a desalination plant in the Sea of Cortez to replenish California’s rapidly evaporating Salton Sea. He said they found three major issues: energy, cost, and environmental impact. Because desalination plants operate 24/7, “that takes renewables off the table, because renewables—wind and solar—run intermittently,” and batteries […]

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The Rigid World of French Cheesemaking Meets Unbound Climate Change

Just past the neat vineyards and country houses with their blue shutters and tile roofs, goats munch their way through a field of thigh-high plants more typical to Sudan and India than Southern France. It is late September, and 81 degrees Fahrenheit (27 Celsius) — unseasonably warm, which is increasingly common and in fact the […]

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Extreme Drought Is Revealing Ancient Carvings of Human Faces In the Amazon

ABSTRACT breaks down mind-bending scientific research, future tech, new discoveries, and major breakthroughs. Ancient rock carvings of human faces that are normally submerged in the Brazilian Amazon have been exposed this month by a record-breaking drought that has dramatically lowered water levels. The carvings were made by Indigenous peoples some 1,000 to 2,000 years ago […]

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Can We Save the Redwoods by Helping Them Move?

Their aggressive approach to conservation featured prominently in numerous scientific articles that followed, discussing the pros and cons of assisted migration. One common theme that has emerged is the need for a framework within which to make decisions about facilitating the migration of plants and animals, not least because the unintended consequences could be irreversible […]

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Drought in Spain Leaves Villagers Fearing a Drier Future

It was 10 a.m. when the villagers, clutching empty plastic containers, lined up behind the tanker truck of drinking water. A cake shop owner arrived with four big jugs for his pastries. Workers from a retirement home carried two dozen bottles back on wheelchairs for their wards. And a mother of four loaded her trunk […]

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A Severe Drought Pushes the Amazon Rainforest to the Brink

The planet’s biggest freshwater tank is in trouble. The Amazon rainforest, where a fifth of the world’s freshwater flows, is reeling from a powerful drought that shows no sign of abating. Likely made worse by global warming and deforestation, the drought has fueled large wildfires that have made the air hazardous for millions of people, […]

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New Orleans Seeks to Avert Crisis as Saltwater Nears the City

People in New Orleans are used to preparing for hurricanes and floods. So when they learned of a new threat — an infusion of salty water creeping slowly up the Mississippi River, threatening municipal drinking water supplies — they did what comes naturally: strip bottled water from grocery store shelves. But this is a crisis […]

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Saltwater in the Mississippi Threatens Water Supply in New Orleans

Drought-like conditions in the Midwest over the summer have created a growing water problem in the New Orleans area this fall. Water levels of the Mississippi River have dropped low enough to make the river less resistant to a mass of saltwater flowing north from the Gulf of Mexico. This circumstance, known as saltwater intrusion, […]

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Germany’s Oldest Hops Thrived for Centuries. Then Came Climate Change.

Generations of farmers in the sun-lashed green hills of Spalt have proudly tended to their hops plants, used for brewing beer, since the Middle Ages. Asked what makes the native breed of Spalter hops so special, enthusiasts rhapsodize about their delicate, spicy aroma; their lightness; and the harmony and hint of bitterness the crop imparts. […]

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