“The researchers identified the type of water loss on land, and for the first time, found that 68% came from groundwater alone — contributing more to sea level rise than glaciers and ice caps on land.”
They are saying the leading loss of water loss is from ground water. The largest contributor to sea level rise I would guess is still thermosteric sea level rise due to the ocean becoming warmer and less dense
Thank you for sharing, GRACE-FO feels to me like a brilliant design!
ornel · 31m ago
Quote from the paper: "the continents are now the leading contributor (44%) to mass-driven GMSL rise". As regards to non-mass-driven rise, another article[0] states, "Ice-mass loss—predominantly from glaciers—has caused twice as much sea-level rise since 1900 as has thermal expansion". I think the findings about sea level rise are as interesting as the ones about fresh water disappearance.
The study you cite is talking about sea level rise since 1900 which is a very different story.
The IPCC section “9.6.1.1 Global Mean Sea Level Change Budget in the Pre-satellite Era” says Since SROCC, a new ocean heat content reconstruction (Section 2.3.3.1; Zanna et al., 2019) has allowed global thermosteric sea level change to be estimated over the 20th century. As a result, the sea level budget for the 20th century can now be assessed for the first time. For the periods 1901–1990 and 1901–2018, the assessed very likely range for the sum of components is found to be consistent with the assessed very likely range of observed GMSL change (medium confidence), in agreement with Frederikse et al. (2020b; Table 9.5). This represents a major step forward in the understanding of observed GMSL change over the 20th century, which is dominated by glacier (52%) and Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss (29%) and the effect of ocean thermal expansion (32%), with a negative contribution from the LWS change (–14%). While the combined mass loss for Greenland and glaciers is consistent with SROCC, updates in the underlying datasets lead to differences in partitioning of the mass loss.”
srameshc · 1h ago
> New findings from studying over two decades of satellite observations reveal that the Earth’s continents have experienced unprecedented freshwater loss since 2002, driven by climate change, unsustainable groundwater use and extreme droughts.
The title captures the crux of the story
garrettdreyfus · 56m ago
Sorry I am referring to HN submission title not the article title
cubefox · 43m ago
Original title: "New global study shows freshwater is disappearing at alarming rates"
jfengel · 1h ago
Unlike climate change, this is a self correcting problem. We'll tap the last of the fresh water, and then no more sea level rise (from that source).
Problem solved, once and for all.
causal · 48m ago
Solutions that include mass die-off of human populations are generally considered incomplete
Ekaros · 46m ago
But they are effective in reducing emissions.
makeitdouble · 40m ago
This is an often repeated point, and many proponent of population reduction embrace it.
I think that's completely ignoring our consumption patterns. We're totally up to the challenge of burning twice the resources with only half the population.
firstworldfail · 42m ago
I love the first world perspective. It pretends to be erudite while being completely inhuman. As if "emissions" are something you could ever get rid of. Any excuse to avoid making their own lives more efficient or the distribution of resources more fair.
ojbyrne · 6m ago
[delayed]
aydyn · 28m ago
What is a "fair" distribution of resources in your perspective, in general.
andyferris · 18m ago
Just like the coal, gas, oil and forests - so exactly like climate change, in fact...
(It's a problem that saturates but not a problem that self-corrects, and the saturation point is undesirable in any case)
treyd · 1h ago
The polar ice caps are the same way. Once we melt all the ice then the sea level rise will stop, and we can just deal with the change in lifestyle.
oh_my_goodness · 1h ago
I think the change in lifestyle from using up all the groundwater would be pretty severe.
micromacrofoot · 1h ago
personally i'm just going to evolve
fooker · 5m ago
You can also hibernate in pokeballs when things get bad.
Foolproof plan.
DaveZale · 19m ago
I have a tub in the kitchen sink to capture all dishwater, and make 4-5 trips outside to dump the water daily, into watering tubes that are six inches deep, around the dripline of each tree. Here in the SW US it is almost pointless to water at the surface, 90% or so is lost to evaporation within a day.
riffraff · 53m ago
Not developing mutations to live in a mad max style future shows lack of initiative
Gibbon1 · 13m ago
Considering current shitshow reaction to having to deal with smaller issues I'm not optimistic about how that's going to play out.
marcosdumay · 57m ago
Well, that applies to most of our habitat-change problems.
ada1981 · 25m ago
It’s a good reminder that “climate change” will be a minor inconvenience for the rich, and an existential crisis for everyone else.
And that most of the inconvience will be needing to deploy robots to keep the poor away.
robertclaus · 1h ago
Interesting second order effect of global warming.
No comments yet
giantg2 · 1h ago
So they claim the majority of the water is ground water and also that it is due to climate change. But I thought I've seen other studies talking about how ground water is being depleted at a higher rate than it could be replaced, even using historical averages. This sounds more like a population/industrialization issue than a climate issue.
cycomanic · 57m ago
> So they claim the majority of the water is ground water and also that it is due to climate change. But I thought I've seen other studies talking about how ground water is being depleted at a higher rate than it could be replaced, even using historical averages. This sounds more like a population/industrialization issue than a climate issue.
I'm not sure I understand where you see a contradiction. Land areas are using groundwater faster than it can be replenished, so land is getting drier. That's according to the article (just basing of the summary not the scientific one) is driven by both overuse and drier and warmer weather. The thing is, that's a feedback loop, if it gets drier we'll be using more groundwater for irrigation. So both processes are driven by climate change.
No comments yet
pstuart · 1h ago
I think the distinction is between rainwater runoff vs aquifer depletion. They are related, and if we were collectively smarter we would do a better job of managing the runoff to help restore the aquifers.
DaveZale · 17m ago
in some parts of the country (US), interstate water agreements promise a certain volume of water to be delivered from one state to another, in which cases, runoff is sometimes required. Legal agreements.
“The researchers identified the type of water loss on land, and for the first time, found that 68% came from groundwater alone — contributing more to sea level rise than glaciers and ice caps on land.”
They are saying the leading loss of water loss is from ground water. The largest contributor to sea level rise I would guess is still thermosteric sea level rise due to the ocean becoming warmer and less dense
See ipcc https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/chapter/chapter-9/
9.6.1 Global and Regional Sea Level Change in the Instrumental Era
In particular, Cross-Chapter 9.1, Figure 1 | Global Energy Inventory and Sea Level Budget. Panel b
EDIT: @dang could the submission title be changed to the article or journal article title?
“New global study shows freshwater is disappearing at alarming rates”
Or
“Unprecedented continental drying, shrinking freshwater availability, and increasing land contributions to sea level rise”
I also highly recommend reading up on the GRACE satellite used in this study it is amazing https://gracefo.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/50/how-grace-fo-measu...
[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2591-3
The IPCC section “9.6.1.1 Global Mean Sea Level Change Budget in the Pre-satellite Era” says Since SROCC, a new ocean heat content reconstruction (Section 2.3.3.1; Zanna et al., 2019) has allowed global thermosteric sea level change to be estimated over the 20th century. As a result, the sea level budget for the 20th century can now be assessed for the first time. For the periods 1901–1990 and 1901–2018, the assessed very likely range for the sum of components is found to be consistent with the assessed very likely range of observed GMSL change (medium confidence), in agreement with Frederikse et al. (2020b; Table 9.5). This represents a major step forward in the understanding of observed GMSL change over the 20th century, which is dominated by glacier (52%) and Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss (29%) and the effect of ocean thermal expansion (32%), with a negative contribution from the LWS change (–14%). While the combined mass loss for Greenland and glaciers is consistent with SROCC, updates in the underlying datasets lead to differences in partitioning of the mass loss.”
The title captures the crux of the story
Problem solved, once and for all.
I think that's completely ignoring our consumption patterns. We're totally up to the challenge of burning twice the resources with only half the population.
(It's a problem that saturates but not a problem that self-corrects, and the saturation point is undesirable in any case)
Foolproof plan.
And that most of the inconvience will be needing to deploy robots to keep the poor away.
No comments yet
I'm not sure I understand where you see a contradiction. Land areas are using groundwater faster than it can be replenished, so land is getting drier. That's according to the article (just basing of the summary not the scientific one) is driven by both overuse and drier and warmer weather. The thing is, that's a feedback loop, if it gets drier we'll be using more groundwater for irrigation. So both processes are driven by climate change.
No comments yet