Drought

[glenc (Glen)]

SATELLITES have been used to map all of Australia's fresh water for the first time, and the picture is bleak. In just three years, the continent has suffered a net loss of 46 cubic kilometres of fresh water - enough to fill Sydney Harbour more than 90 times…

Launched by a Russian rocket in 2002, GRACE, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, involves two identical craft circling 220 kilometres apart, 485 kilometres up. By repeatedly plotting variations in the tug of earth's gravity, GRACE can estimate changes in the mass of the water below. "Even water in aquifers," said Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist at the University of California, Irvine. It also measures water in river basins and reservoirs…

GRACE maps the world's water every month, working on the principle that "water is heavy". When one satellite passes over water, the increased gravitational pull makes the probe above speed up, altering the distance between it and its orbiting twin.
"The distance between the GRACE satellites is a couple of hundred kilometres … we can track the difference to within the thickness of a red blood cell," said the professor. "It blows me away".

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environme...895479947.html

GRACE
http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/

[Ric]

Hi Glen, thanks for the links, that's pretty amazing science that they can do with GRACE. But as you say the picture is pretty bleak for our future freshwater reserves at the moment and when it's put into perspective as in how many Sydney harbour's it can fill it becomes all that more worrying.

Cheers

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

Thanks for the links and information...

Hope the new year brings much needed new rains!

[spacezebra (Petra)]

Thanks for the links - indeed a very interesting topic

Cheers Petra

[glenc (Glen)]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8197287.stm
Parts of India are on track for severe water shortages, according to results from Nasa's gravity satellites.
"The Grace mission discovered that in the country's north-west - including Delhi - the water table is falling by about 4cm (1.6 inches) per year.
Writing in the journal Nature, they say rainfall has not changed, and water use is too high, mainly for farming..."

[CoombellKid]

Sometimes I wonder if we all went back to the basics... a cow for milk
and butter and a few for meat, a few chooks for eggs, a good veggie
garden and a local bartering system in our communities how better off
we'd be. There would be no need for huge Ag industries and that must
cut emissions a lil. And you would have tasty fresh food.

Cheers,CS

[TrevorW]

I blame the invisionaries those in Govt (any) who don't think beyond the next election

Australia a continent deemed the driest but only reactive outcome from those who we elect to make a difference

The same can be said for renewable energy, light pollution and the cost of petrol

Unfortunately the only real govt for the people would be a govt by the people