Study: 'Lake Mead Dry by 2021'

[zengrifter]

Study: 50-50 chance of dry Lake Mead in 2021
Study cites warming, water use and growing Colorado River deficit

MSNBC staff and news service reports
updated 10:57 a.m. AKT, Tues., Feb. 12, 2008



What are the chances that Lake Mead, a key source of water for more than 22 million people in the Southwest, would ever go dry? A new study says it's 50 percent by 2021 if warming continues and water use is not curtailed.

"We were stunned at the magnitude of the problem and how fast it was coming at us," co-author Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said in a statement. "Make no mistake, this water problem is not a scientific abstraction, but rather one that will impact each and every one of us that live in the Southwest."

"It's likely to mean real changes to how we live and do business in this region," added co-author David Pierce, a Scripps climate scientist.

MORE- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23130256/

[Brutus]

this is really bad news. especially for las vegas.

[Sonny]

Originally Posted by zengrifter

Study: 50-50 chance of dry Lake Mead in 2021

They're paying 6:5 in Henderson. There must be an overlay here somewhere!

-Sonny-

[aslan]

The article stated:
When expected changes due to global warming are included as well, currently scheduled depletions are simply not sustainable," Barnett and Pierce write in the study.

Is anyone aware of a study of the impact of global warming on the Southwest, and especially the Las Vegas area? I know that global warming is supposed to cause catastrophic salt water flooding on the East Coast, so I am curious what the effect will be in the Southwest. I suppose that some areas of the world will actually benefit from global warming, but I have never seen a study of the benefits.

[mdlbj]

Seeing how the Sierra Nevada saw record snowfall as well as Colorado and the Greater rocky mountains this year, I would take the over on this.. Global warming is hippie speak. Smoke a bowl and get over it. Besides, I need a better tan.

[aslan]

Originally Posted by mdlbj

Seeing how the Sierra Nevada saw record snowfall as well as Colorado and the Greater rocky mountains this year, I would take the over on this.. Global warming is hippie speak. Smoke a bowl and get over it. Besides, I need a better tan.

Are you saying the 50-year long drought in the SW is over? Great, if so! I am anything but a hippie, but global warming is a scientific fact, the only thing in dispute being whether it is manmade or not. I don't smoke (zg promises to fix that if we ever meet. lol), but I will sip a little Napa sunshine in honor of the falling banks* of Lake Mead. Oh! And I'll be sure to pack a raincoat for my next jaunt to neon valley.

* rising waters

[ChefJJ]

Originally Posted by mdlbj

Seeing how the Sierra Nevada saw record snowfall as well as Colorado and the Greater rocky mountains this year, I would take the over on this.. Global warming is hippie speak. Smoke a bowl and get over it. Besides, I need a better tan.

Regardless of what is causing it, the world is heating up...and that's also regardless of how much chronic gets blown as well.

[Guynoire]

There are a lot of myths out there about global warming, one of them is that rising sea levels will cause massive floods. This was popularized in Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" but after he won the nobel peace prize many scientists felt compelled to point out the fallacies in the film. The rising sea levels was the biggest one. Scientists do expect sea levels to rise but only by about 9 inches, and most of this isn't even from ice cap melt it's from the water simply expanding as it heats up. Another myth is that global warming will cause worldwide droughts, maybe this is from people naturally linking hot with dry. Well, if you actually think about it if the earth heats up it should get wetter as more water evaporates from the ocean and cycles through the water cycle at any given time. Weather patterns will change in any given area but the global average precipitation rate should go up.

Truthfully, I think that this lake is unrelated to global warming.

[zengrifter]

Originally Posted by Guynoire

There are a lot of myths out there about global warming...

Not a myth - Al Gore is positioned to reap a BILLION dollars from global warming. zg

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