Water During The Dust Bowl

Words: 1930
Pages: 8

As we all know, water is essential for mankind's survival. However, people seem to believe that our water supply is endless since there is more water than land on this Earth. It’s also lead to think that since water regenerates and is redistributed through evaporation, that makes it seem endlessly renewable. Actually, only one percent of the world's water has the capability of being used by us. About ninety-seven percent is salt water, and two percent is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. That only leaves one percent of this precious water that can be used by not only people, but used by animals, plants, and for food. With the population around the world increasing drastically year after year, the water source will become scarce and eventually …show more content…
Midwest. Atmosphere models forced by observed SSTs simulated a drought during the 1930s with both cooler than normal tropical Pacific and warmer than normal tropical North Atlantic; SST anomalies being responsible. However, the droughts were centered in the U.S. Southwest and not in the central plains and were also too weak according to Seager’s chart. Two hypotheses have been advanced to explain the discrepancy. The first is that the 1930s drought was amplified and moved northward by human-induced wind erosion and “dust aerosol–radiation interactions” (Dohert 4582), and the other is that, the Dust Bowl drought contained a large component of internal atmospheric variability not linked to SST anomalies. Both authors draw a distinction between the spatial extent and severity of the 1930s Dust Bowl drought and the 1950s U.S. Southwest drought with the latter appearing to be more of a recognized SST-forced drought. Similarly, North America is currently within the fouth year of a drought that has brought consecutive summers of intense heat and dry conditions to the central part of the continent, from western Mexico to Canada. While La Nina conditions prevailed during both summers, it is not …show more content…
Verghese’s predictions about water stress leading to violent outbursts have already become a reality. “In 1991, in Karnataka, eighteen people were killed and another thirty thousand displaced in riots protesting the government’s release of Cauvery River water” Verghese explains. He goes on to talk about riots in Dhaka, stoning of police officers in protest, and robbers commandeering a train full of passengers and guards for the water in the toilets. This goes to show how savage the world grows as our water source lessens. “Can anyone truly be given permission to sell ground or surface water simply because it flows through that person’s property?” a question brought up by Paul Levy, a resident in Callicoon, New York. This quote was a response to a political assault on a neighbor who wanted to sell the water that bubbles up out of the shared aquifer underneath their land to a water company; their neighbors accused them of drying their watershed, driving away the animals, and wiping out their trout. Levy’s quote evolved and eventually led to the question of who actually owns