South American Drought (population, culture, areas, water)

[sargentodiaz]

We see and hear about the drought in the USA, but look at what's happening south of us.



See many, many more @ images of south american drought - Bing Images

[green_mariner]

This will affect alot of coffee exports.

[azoria]

Not that it renders the map irrelevant, but the rainfall map from south America came from NOAA in 2010. Four years ago.

[captsam]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...g Out Of Water

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?Arti...tegoryId=14919

[MalaMan]

We are used to droughts here in the Northeast of Brazil, specially here in the state of Ceara.

Droughts ("secas") have been a historical problem here in this part of Brazil, and we have learnt to deal with droughts, and to mitigate its effects.

But what is happening here since late 2011 is a drought of EPIC PROPORTIONS.

2014 is the 3rd straight year of bellow-average rainfall here in Ceara (and in the rest of the semi-arid part of Northeastern Brazil).

Some specialists claim it's the worst drought here in the past 100 years.

Fortunately, the effects of the drought are no longer catastrophic as they used to be just 30 or 40 years ago, because we have built a better infrastrucuture to deal with the drought. We have many big dams and long canals here in Ceara.

So far, the water supply of Fortaleza is not under any risk. But we hope this drought come to an end soon. It affects very much the agriculture in the areas outside of the irrigation perimeters.

We can only hope this once-in-a-century drought don't go on for many years more. This area of the world was supposed to be SEMI-arid, and not a desert. We have a large population living here, so it can't suddenly become a desert. That would suck...

[captsam]

The Gulf Stream has been flowing faster than ever recorded as one byproduct, so it is dragging up cooler waters from the south Atlantic and deep below, one of the reasons for the dearth of tropical storms last year. Cool water cools the air above and cool air can't hold moisture as well as warm air. The same thing is the main cause of the droughts in the southern tier of US states and MENA.