Drought!

Drought on the ocean.  There are deserts all over the world and many of them are near the ocean.  There is the Atacama desert.  The Arabian desert, the Kalahari desert, the Sahara desert, the Baja desert, and Austrailia; they are all on the ocean.  Most of those are also in the high pressure zone where the air that rose in the tropics drops down and circles back to the tropics or continues north.  The air is dry and it picks up availible moisture and continues on its way.  Often times there is a cold water current just off the coast, this means cold air.  Cold air has low amounts of water and that means that when it heats up, it has a lot of unused water capacity.  The California Current, Peru Current, Canary current, Benguela current— all of the coast of some of those deserts.  But there is more.

The truth is, that there are other factors, like climate change.  Climate change has the air and the water heating up, in the tropics that means more water in those areas, but when the air is dry, it is drier.  Another factor is that we have more people in those areas and they are drawing on e water in those areas.  They are taking from the aquifers and when those waters are gone, they are gone forever.  This is what has happened in Yemen.  There are other areas like East Africa, South Africa, Austrailia, and the American West, all are suffering from severe water shortages.  We are taking the water and we are suffering because of it.

There are solutions.  There is the recent passive water collectors that strip water vapour from the air, technology right out of science fiction, Dune.  This is one way that we can combat the shortage.  Another way is to use the land to make power, through wind turbines and solar panels and to use the energy to purify the ocean water.  Another thing we can do is take the excess water and plant the desert.  Plants transpire water and that water will create rain.  The plants will increase infiltration of the soil by water and this may help to recharge the aquifer.  It will also soak up some Carbon and that may help with the problem.

It is an expensive solution, but all solutions will be now.  The saying that "An ounce of prevention, is worth a pound of cure", holds true. The reality is that the ounce of prevention was twenty years ago, and these days all we can do is cure—the medicine will be expensive.

This was inspired by the plight of Cape Town, South Africa, but secondarily by Yemen, Australia, and the South-West America.