[HN Gopher] The Aral Sea has shrunk because of the re-routing of... ___________________________________________________________________ The Aral Sea has shrunk because of the re-routing of its source rivers (2022) Author : freediver Score : 49 points Date : 2023-01-07 19:04 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.marineinsight.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.marineinsight.com) | vbezhenar wrote: | It's not clear whether it was because of re-routing. It used to | shrink in the past. Might just be some nature cycle. | ryankshaw wrote: | The same is going to happen to the (once) Great Salt Lake. It's | going to be a disaster, the vast majority of the population of | Utah lives along the Wasatch Front nextdoor and downwind from it, | and all the heavy metals and toxic chemicals that are stably | suspended in it from the Kennecott copper mine and the old Geneva | Steel mills are going to turn into dust and go straight into | their lungs. There's going to be a ton of cancer just like all | the towns along the shores of the dried up Aral Sea | madaxe_again wrote: | I've been to a few of said towns - Aralsk is the most notable. | | It's a forsaken place. Never mind the port machinery swinging | idly in the hot, dusty breeze, suspended over toxic sludge | where a sea once lapped its shores - the human disaster there | is palpable. There's no industry, no work, no future. People | sit, and wait. The North Korean friendship centre hands out | packages of household supplies on a dusty square full of dead | trees. The place is half abandoned, and the people who remain - | well, they're abandoned too. | | It's hard to describe the heaviness that sat over the place - | it's oppressive, a feeling of inexorable doom. | | It's unlikely these places will exist in the not too distant | future. They existed on the brink, and the brink is long gone, | and they are in freefall. | LarryMullins wrote: | While as far as I can tell the Great Salt Lake's level is | presently _severely_ low due to human actions, reconstructions | of the historic level of the lake from tree ring analysis shows | that the lake 's natural level fluctuates substantially even | when humans aren't doing anything to it. So even if water | diversions stopped, the GSL area would still have a long-term | problem on their hands. The toxic lake bed will get exposed one | way or the other, if not through the actions of men then | through natural fluctuations. Given that the lakebed is already | contaminated and there's no way to fix that, the best solution | is to live someplace else. | | > _For example, the driest (wettest) year on record, 1581 | (1464) occurred many centuries ago and was substantially larger | in magnitude than the historical record. At lower frequencies, | the GSL lake-level reconstruction revealed large, multi-year | reductions in lake levels from 1580-1600, in the 1630s, and | from 1700-1710 that in each case were at least as severe as the | known lake-level minima during the drought of the 1930s and | 2000-2001 (Figure 3)._ | | https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/46447 | | Incidentally, the "many centuries ago" framing is revealing of | a general attitude I've noticed from Americans, particularly | Americans living in the western half of the country. They think | "several centuries" is essentially an eternity because in their | region, several centuries ago is before recorded history. And | in a sense, for an individual human planning their life, | several centuries may as well be an eternity. But for _city_ | planning, an environmental problem that 's likely to be | disastrous for the city every few hundred years should be | considered a severe threat. That sort of circumstance makes for | a city that won't survive the test of time. | | Another example of this sort of short-term thinking is water | levels in California. According to tree stump analysis, | California has been unusually wet since America acquired the | land; this luck will not last. California had, and will have | again, droughts which are far more severe than any Californian | drought in living memory. Californian communities should be | planning to deal with such severe droughts, but many | Californians seem to prefer believing that they can somehow | stabilize the Californian climate to always be the way it was | when they were kids. | ilammy wrote: | > _Incidentally, the "many centuries ago" framing is | revealing of a general attitude I've noticed from Americans_ | | They don't say "in Europe 100 miles is a long way, in America | 100 years is a long time" for nothing. | | 100 years ago WW1 just finished. 200 years ago saw a peak of | slave imports into US. 300 years ago thirteen colonies just | finished forming. 400 years ago colonization just started. | 500 years ago Columbus' expeditions were still news. | | Not to say that nothing happened in Europe in the meantime | lol, but this sets a perspective quite well. "100 years ago" | _is_ effectively "eternity" for an individual human. Only | societies can retain memories at that scale. | nerdponx wrote: | All of this is valid, but that doesn't mean humans aren't | making it worse than it needs to be. "It fluctuates anyway" | is a common talking point for those who want to deny the | effect of human activity. | LarryMullins wrote: | As I said: the Great Salt Lake's level is presently | _severely_ low due to human actions. | | Long-term thinking is possible, and two example that comes | to mind are Tsunami Stones in Japan and Hunger Stones in | Europe. After disastrous Tsunamis, people in Japan would | sometimes inscribe rocks up on hills, warning people not to | live near the water lower than the rock. And during severe | droughts in Europe, large stones exposed in dry rivers | would sometimes be inscribed with warning about famine; _" | If you see me, cry"_ | | Some of those stones are several hundred years old. | America, particularly the western half, is substantially | younger than many of these warning stones; the cultures | inhabiting these regions today simply don't have much | experience dealing with all the scenarios the land has to | offer. | avgcorrection wrote: | That's terrible. | | Is the primary reason overconsumption from farming (70% of the | consumption according to Yahoo News)? If so then I guess they | could import more agricultural products. That's easier than | having most of the residents use less water. | | But another problem might be: where would the food come from? | California also has a drought problem. I don't know. | scythe wrote: | It's not the first time this has happened in the United States: | | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owens_Lake | pfdietz wrote: | It's not even the first time it's happened to the Aral Sea. | | https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1kz4ggd.10 | nickt wrote: | Indeed. Here's a discussion from yesterday for those who may | have missed it: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34276519 | John23832 wrote: | And it's sad, because it can all be averted. A modern day Dust | Bowl. | freediver wrote: | Aral Sea: The sea that dried up in 40 years | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N-_69cWyKo | | The Story of the Aral Sea's Disappearance | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsUYt9tlsos | sitkack wrote: | The _same_ thing is happening to California 's Central Valley. | | https://phys.org/news/2022-12-depletion-groundwater-californ... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-01-07 23:00 UTC)