LeakBird

(March 5, 2009, Crikey Creek)

What John Fleck refers to as “one of climate change’s most important equations”, just happens to be one of hydrology’s most important equations too – probably the most.

In the previous post I showed annual data sets of rainfall and temperature for the whole of Australia. In the last seven years, rainfall has been a little low, but temperature has been really high – and attributed to climate change. Evaporation siphoned off some of that valuable rainfall before it could feed plants and supply rivers.

This equation is the conservation of mass. Rearranged to show what society cares about on the left side, and what the environment gives us on the right, we have:
River.Flow + Increase.In.Water.Storage = Rainfall – Evaporation
Higher temperatures, more evaporation, less water for us.

(Original Post Here)

Related posts:

1. Parts of Central and Southern Taiwan with No Rainfall Yet This Year (TaiwanGuide) (Feb. 19, 2009, Taiwan-Guide Blog) I came across this article...
2. Hydrology Hostages: Economies ABSOLUTELY Depend on Water, Especially in Africa; Strong Correlation between Rainfall & GDP? (News24) (Feb. 22, 2009, News24) African economies are especially vulnerable to...
3. Rainfall Key Even to Island Communities’ Water Supply (KitsapSun) (Jan. 23, 2009, The Kitsap Sun) It’s a fact that...
4. Artesian 100% New Zealand Bottled Water Available at Trader Joe’s in Wisconsin (CrikeyCreek) (March 7, 2009, Crikey Creek) When I was doing the...
5. Let Clean Water Flow: Obama Called to Increase Global Water Aid, but What about Our Own Water Crisis in America? (Ben Block, WorldChanging) (March 20, 2009, Ben Block, WorldChanging) In his inauguration speech...