
The Tragedy of Iran’s Great Salt Lake - rl3
http://nautil.us/blog/the-tragedy-of-irans-great-salt-lake
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mavdi
I'm from Urmia. I clearly remember the days we used to go to the lake and
effortlessly float on it. It was a great sight, with magnificent wildlife,
beautiful flowers and odd looking rocks.

I haven't been back to Urmia in almost 9 years but from what I hear the drying
up of the lake has ruined the surrounding climate and destroyed the wild
habitat.

The causes are known. We just used more water that we had. We built dams all
over the rivers feeding it. Dug deeper and deeper wells to extract the ground
water and here is the result. It's the sort of story you keep hearing over and
over again, in different places with similar outcomes. When will it end?
Probably with us.

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stephengillie
This water problem is everywhere. Not just California.

What's happening to all of the Earth's water? Is it going into flooding in
other parts of the world that don't come to mind? Are sea levels rising? Is
our air getting more humid? Is it going into under the Earth's crust or under
the sea floor? Did the single-catalyst water splitter get dropped into the
ocean? Are we storing more of it in our food plants and food animals? Are we
storing it in something else like concrete for buildings?

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mirimir
While there may be global impacts of increased greenhouse warming, these
"water problems" are mostly just about regional mass balance. For example,
various watersheds used to drain into Lake Urmia. But they have been diverted
elsewhere, so the lake is drying up. Ditto for the Aral Sea and the Salton
Sea. And for the Colorado River, except there "drying up" means not reaching
the Pacific.

To the extent that there's increased evaporation, the water just ends up
elsewhere, more or less randomly. Fresh water is a small part of the global
water cycle.

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stephengillie
That's a satisfying explanation. I want to tack on the projected water
shortage in Yakima due to reduced snow pack on the northern Cascades.

Some of this could be "awareness bias" where people are more likely to be
aware of information that's similar to other information they've received
recently. Are we focusing more on apparent water shortages because of
California?

Yes, the water is somewhere. Just so long as it's somewhere terrestrial, and
not escaping into space like happened to Mars and Venus.

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mirimir
Thanks. And yes, your example points to changing patterns of precipitation.
The western US overall seems to be in drought. That is likely somewhat
anthropogenic.

