A recent report, published in Surveys in Geophysics and data-driven GRACE mission satellitesreveals that the Earth has experienced an abrupt decrease in its amount of fresh water since May 2014.
This phenomenon could mark the beginning of a drier stage for the continents, according to the study’s authors, led by Matthew Rodell, a hydrologist at NASA’s Goddard Center.
From 2015 to 2023, the average annual freshwater storage (including surface and groundwater) was 1,200 cubic kilometers lower to the levels recorded between 2002 and 2014. This loss is equivalent to 2.5 times the volume of Lake Erie.
The reduction is linked to extreme climate events, such as massive drought in Brazil in 2014 and a series of subsequent drought phenomena on different continents.
The ‘El Niño’ phenomenon
The decline in freshwater coincides with one of the most intense El Niño events since 1950. However, even after this event ended, freshwater levels did not recover. Additionally, 13 of the 30 most severe droughts observed by GRACE occurred after 2015.
Global warming is pointed out as a key factor behind this trend. According to scientists, rising temperatures intensify the atmosphere’s ability to retain water vapor, causing more extreme rainfall.
These events, although they seem to compensate for the lack of water in the short term, tend to cause a increased runoffmaking it difficult to recharge aquifers and increasing the drought risk.
Water stress
The study highlights the challenges posed by water stress, including famines, poverty and conflicts derived of competition for increasingly scarce water resources.
In the future, there remains uncertainty as to whether global freshwater levels will be able to recover or continue to decline, a problem that the study’s authors believe could be a harbinger of even deeper climate changes.
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