Stephen Hanover’s recent letter (“Reality check needed for climate watchers”) is nonsensical. The average temperature of our planet is slowly increasing, but that does not mean more land becomes “arable” as a result.
Indeed; much of the formerly arable land in parts of the world is instead turning into desert for lack of rainfall, as are large lakes like the Great Salt Lake and Aral Sea. The southwestern United States is experiencing record droughts, particularly in the Colorado River basin. And low-lying areas near oceans are likely to be flooded as sea levels rise from melting ice packs. Irrigated areas near oceans also risk contamination from brackish (salt) water intrusion, as do aquifers for drinking water.
It’s all fine and dandy to build more reservoirs and viaducts, but where is that water going to come from if there’s little rain and snowfall? California, which has both Mediterranean and desert climates, gets most of its fresh water from snowfall in the Sierra Nevada range, and annual snowfall amounts have also been in steady decline – so much so that it’s predicted that the Sierra snow pack could disappear altogether in 25 years.
Combined with rising temperatures, evaporative losses of water in dry climates accelerates the problem. In response, the state is constructing enclosed reservoirs near Los Angeles to minimize evaporative losses of what water it has.
Long-term forecasts call for higher annual temperatures in the Southwest and South, while the upper Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and New England states will become wetter with higher annual rainfall amounts. Too much rain is almost as bad as not enough rain when it comes to raising crops: Fields have already been flooded and washed out by severe downpours this year and last along the Atlantic Coast, and extreme weather events like Hurricane Ida and high winds from strong thunderstorms have also wreaked havoc.
There’s no question the earth is warming. Increased amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere are certainly a big part of the problem, and much of that carbon dioxide comes from burning fossil fuels. (It doesn’t help that many areas across our planet continue to be deforested, such as the Amazon Basin – trees absorb CO2 and replenish O2 Into the atmosphere.)
Debating if climate change is a cyclical trend or a unique event is like arguing about what started a fire while it’s still burning, instead of trying to put it out. Simplistic answers and erroneous assumptions won’t solve the problem of climate change.
Peter Putman, Buckingham
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/colorado-river-basin/science/drought-colorado-river-basin
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