Lake Mead Drying Up?
Today I realized that there is a serious lack of actual science articles here. Now I understand that space/astronomy is considered science, but at the same time there are many other fields out there and a lot of interesting articles that I read that need comment from time to time. Not sure if this subject was the right one to make me see the light because it isn’t about baby clothes or anything, but regardless I am going to discuss it anyways ;).
Lake Mead resides in Las Vegas ans many of you know, and is the largest man made lake and reservoir in the country. The lake not only provides water for millions, but it is also a great source of hydroelectric energy. I know hwat you are thinking…it is MAN MADE, how can it possibly dry up and not be taken care of? I’m glad you asked.
One of my favorite sites, Science News Online published a story today that tells you exactly what is going on. According to the article it is thought that there is a 50% chance that if “climate changes as expected, and future water use goes unchecked, there’s a 50 percent chance that Lake Mead….will become functionally dry in the next couple of decades, a new study suggests.”
Over the past century, on average, about 18.5 cubic kilometers of water flowed into Lake Mead each year, says Tim P. Barnett, a climatologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. Of that amount, about 2.1 km3 evaporate into the dry desert air or soak into the ground beneath the lake each year. What’s left in the lake is more than spoken for: The amount of water drawn from Lake Mead this year to meet demand in cities as far-flung as Los Angeles and San Diego will exceed 16.6 km3.
And the situation will likely get worse, Barnett and colleague David W. Pierce speculate in an upcoming Water Resources Research. By 2030, the researchers note, annual demand for Lake Mead’s water is projected to rise to 17.4 km3. Also, some climate studies suggest that the Colorado’s flow will drop between 10 and 30 percent in the next 30 to 50 years. Using these data, as well as weather simulations that impose random but reasonable annual variations in river flow volume, Barnett and Pierce used a computer model to estimate the remaining useful life of the Lake Mead reservoir.
Thanks in part to the worst drought in the Southwest in the past 500 years, Lake Mead is now at about 50 percent capacity.
Here are the most startling statistics:
If current allocations of water persist, there’s a 50 percent chance that by 2023 Lake Mead won’t provide water without pumping, and a 10 percent chance that it won’t by 2013. Moreover, there’s a 50 percent chance that Hoover Dam won’t be able to generate power by 2017, the researchers estimate.
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Filed under: Energy Tech by JMH
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