Northern US fares best, rest of country worse than 10 years ago

Nov 1, 2013 08:54 GMT  ·  By

According to a paper published this summer in the respected journal Science, the amount of freshwater available for consumption in the United States is declining, a phenomenon fueled in part by global warming.

This conclusion is based on data collected by the NASA/DLR Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) spacecraft.

The observations cover 9 years (2003-2012) and showcase how freshwater storage rates have changed over the continental US. As visible in the image above, most of the country has suffered losses, with only some northern portions of the country faring better.

Keeping groundwater levels optimal is extremely important because this source accounts for half of all drinking water available on Earth, as well as for a huge percentage of irrigations used in agriculture.

As global warming becomes increasingly severe, “the contrast in precipitation between wet and dry regions and between wet and dry seasons will increase,” warn climate scientists in the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.