Climate Change: Drought
Water Shortages and Refugee Crises
Drought stands to be the first major issue we face from global warming. Because people require water not only for drinking but also growing the food supply, prolonged drought in wide areas can cause humanitarian crises and political instability in vulnerable countries. At its worst, it could even lead to conflict and may play a role in some existing instabilities as of 2016. Lack of food and water causes people to grow desperate. While rising sea levels are damaging to coastal areas, drought can cause widespread effects and, for that reason, is likely to be one of the major consequences of global warming. Climate change is actually expected to increase rainfall overall, though some areas may experience drought. When we face change on a global scale, we can expect different local areas to be affected differently.
Drought is a naturally occurring pattern for many areas, and expected to happen sometimes nearly everywhere. This means that not every drought is caused by climate change. Similar to how we cannot point to individual storms and claim they were caused by global warming, we cannot state that a particular drought was caused by it. I point this out because this is a general education portion of my site, and I am not attempting to claim to know which droughts would not have occurred without global warming.
What is Drought?
Drought is a prolonged period with insufficient rainfall or a decrease in the water supply, as with glaciers and snow in mountainous regions. As the sun heats the ground or a body of water, water evaporates into the air. Water must be replaced by precipitation, else an area may be considered to be in a drought. High temperatures and high pressure systems (responsible for sunny days) can both cause drought. The ground grows hard and is no longer able to support plants, while rivers and lakes which contribute to the local water supply may begin to have a noticeably lower water level. They can even dry up completely - sometimes impacting areas far downstream - until rainfall returns in adequate amounts, which generally takes time. Soil can hold a lot of moisture, so small amounts of rain over short periods are not enough to fix the problem.
The map above was taken from The U.S. Drought Monitor, which updates the map weekly and aids farmers and policy makers. This one, from November 29, 2016 shows areas affected by varying levels of drought in the United States. I chose this map as an example that may help people to realize the scale drought can take. Some places are better able to withstand a drought than others, depending on many factors. You can learn more about current drought conditions in the U.S. by visiting their site
In many parts of the world, drought is not only caused by a lack of rainfall in specific areas. Glaciers and snow in mountainous regions melt each spring, providing clean drinking water to inhabitants downstream or through other water supplies. If glaciers do not build up over the winter, they will not provide as much water over melting season. Glaciers are considered to be in retreat if they melt more than they grow each year. This is true for many places near mountains - a portion of their water supply comes from those mountains and the snow/glaciers that are present there. For example, in Bolivia, shrinking glaciers that provide up to 25% of the water supply have caused a state of emergency recently.
Wildfires
Wildfires start as a result of overly dry forests. Healthy trees and plants do not burn as readily as those that have been dried out over a long period. With prolonged drought, forests begin to grow more dry. Even grasslands can become extremely susceptible to fire from a lightning strike or the embers of a man-made fire. While firefighters may work hard to contain wildfires, they are a major issue that causes property damage, loss of life, and destroys the habitat of many species. It takes a long time for a forest to come back to life. Wildfires have always happened, but they are likely to occur with more frequency as our climate changes.
Water Supply
Drought greatly affects the water supply in individual areas. The past decade in the U.S. many cities and state governments, such as those in Georgia, have had to restrict water usage. This is largely a matter of convenience, it's not causing widespread famine - people are being told not to water their lawns too often as it exposes water to the sun and speeds evaporation during a drought. However, regional water supplies being hit can cause much worse, especially in developing countries - not much water for crops (natural rainfall) or drinking water.
While climate change may overall increase rainfall around the world, some areas already go through droughts fairly regularly. These areas of the globe will have further reduced water supply. Scientists also expect dry areas to expand. Even if some areas have plenty of water, it would be a monumental task to move enough drinking water to areas experiencing a drought. It would be hard enough just to keep people hydrated, let alone all the animals that also need water, and you can forget about having enough to water crops. It would be much, much easier for the people to move to where the water is, rather than to move the water to them.
Humans are not the only species that need water, all of them do. Even those adapted to the desert need water sometimes. Extensive drought can upset entire ecosystems, and we are already experiencing a mass-extinction. Amphibians are particularly vulnerable to changes in the water supply, but plant and animal life in all forms need water.
Drought and the Food Supply
Global warming causes two problems related to the food supply - excessive heat and drought. One or both may cause issues for farmers. Different crops require different amounts of water and different temperatures under which they can grow a good amount of food. If the temperature is too high, or there is not enough water, the amount of food harvested from those crops will be reduced. Simple enough, right? While the U.S. and many other western countries are better able to adapt to these changes, through use of GMOs and irrigation systems, other parts of the world are not so quick to adapt. Some farmers do not grow their crops to sell them in massive amounts like farmers in western countries, they grow them just to have enough food. With a changing climate, these people will need to migrate to seek lands suitable for growing food or the means to buy food.
Water is absolutely essential to agriculture. Farmers and scientists can come up with more resilient crops that are selected to grow in particular conditions that are more suited for this area or that area, but that takes time and knowledge of the climate conditions in that area. Should climate change outpace our expectations, it grows harder to do that. People should probably stop broadly protesting against GMOs in general, because some of them will be absolutely essential to maintaining the food supply, and already are in areas where crops are difficult to grow. Maybe we should label the produce as GMO, but overall the science of creating hardier crops is going to greatly contribute to the food supply and save millions of lives.
Immigration & Political Stability
The people affected by the changing climate are going to seek food and water. They are not going to simply keel over without attempting to save themselves. They will flee their state or country and seek what they need to sustain themselves. The past several years, the nation of Syria has faced a prolonged conflict with multiple sides fighting for territory and control of its people. Naturally, people have fled that situation for their sake and their children's sake, as many of us would. This one country having a massive migration has caused a major political ruckus - whose responsibility are they, how many immigrants will this country or that country take in, and how will we sustain them? The question is still being debated as we move into 2017. Some people are compassionate and feel we should help as many as possible, others are not lacking in compassion but defensive and feel we must focus on national security and taking care of our own.
When I imagine how the effects of climate change will look in the future, I imagine this current situation and multiply it. Many people have been hesitant or outright unwilling to allow refugees to enter their country. What if it were dozens of countries, all at once? It'd seem that those people might get angry that no one will let them come in, and the people in those countries may even grow angry that those people want to come in. Can those countries they flee possibly remain stable, or will there be riots and fights for land? While I've speculated some here, I'm not the only one who thinks this can happen.
Developed nations are most capable of weathering that migration crisis, and will likely be able to provide for some people, but vulnerable developing countries will absolutely grow unstable under those conditions. We will have long debates about how many people we'll let in, and plenty of them will come in no matter what we have to say. People will seek refuge not only for sustenance, but also to evade conflict. Some may not be allowed to leave. With many countries today beginning to shift toward nationalistic or isolationist tendencies, more countries may battle for fertile land and resources while everyone else stays out of it. It is very difficult to imagine just how it will play out. It is not likely everything will happen at once, as even if we face rapid changes on a geological time scale they will still take place over the course of years.
We would not suffer nearly as badly if climate change were to move slowly. We can change how we do things, and the world's animals will have time to adapt and migrate. Continuing to ignore the problem, it is more likely that it outpaces our expectations. As I've noted elsewhere on this guide to understanding climate change, there is a lag with the climate. Change takes time, and emissions that were put out decades ago are only affecting the world now. What we put out in 2017 will not have an immediate impact. We do not want to find ourselves continuing to ignore the problem for a decade. It is something that is best addressed sooner rather than later, in order to minimize its impact on humanity and the plants and animals affected by our politics. This also minimizes economic impacts, as adjustment that is gradual is much easier to handle than adjustment that is sudden and forced.
