Droughts

Droughts are caused by essentially a lack of rain. If there is not enough water vapor in the sky for it to rain, then there will be a dry spell. This means that droughts are most common in high pressure areas where air is more likely to fall towards that ground than rise into the sky. This is because water vapors are generally carried into the sky by air currents. It is natural for some areas to cycle between times of low and high pressure, even daily. But when there is consistent high pressure a drought occurs. High pressure can get trapped in an area via a wave of fast-moving air called a Jetstream, and air pressure can also change based on water currents. Sometimes, however, even if water vapors are rising into the air, there might not be a strong enough wind to carry them to where they need to go. Generally water vapors will be carried up from the ocean and blown to other areas that need them. If that does not happen, then a drought can occur. Mountains are like roadblocks for wind carrying water vapor. The wind is forced to rise to get past the mountains, and sometimes when this happens the water vapors will condense into rain or snow and fall on top of the mountains, thus leaving less water vapor for other areas. The is why droughts often occur on a side of a mountain that is facing away from the ocean—because by the time the air rises and gets over the first half of the mountain there is little or no water vapor left. (Source: http://library.thinkquest.org/C003603/english/droughts/causesofdroughts.shtml

Washington State has suffered two droughts since 1971. Droughts cause crops to wither and die during the summer due to lack of water. They also threaten the water supply of humans, and can cause plants and animals in forests to die due to lack of water. When streams dry up due to drought, thousands of fish die, too. There is also less irrigation of soil, meaning that our soil dries up leaving us less viable places to plant stuff in the future. Also when human’s water supplies dry up, that means that businesses that rely on water to survive are threatened. If our temperature gets even 3.6 degrees warmer, major droughts will happen five times as frequently. Also, the more dried up dead trees there are lying around, the higher chance of a forest fire happening. In the past 40 years the amount of forest fires in Washington state has more than tripled. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) from cars, industries and power plants trap heat near the earth's surface. More heat means more energy. Adding so much energy to the atmosphere creates the potential for more extremes.  As recent as 2006, we have faced major weather problems. Five years ago, rains caused rivers to overflow and created landslides and floods throughout Western Washington. This was followed by a period of extreme cold, followed by intense winds that caused 14 deaths and 1 million power outages. Climate change will also have a huge economic impact with tens of millions of dollars having to go towards wildfire damage control, hundreds of millions of dollars being lost because of crops withering before they are harvested, and billions of dollars going towards larger water reservoirs to better prepare ourselves for water shortages. With our current economic problems, we can’t really afford to spend all of these billions of dollars on droughts for just our state alone, and all of these issues would be solved if people were not releasing so much Co2 into the atmosphere, speeding up global warming. (Source: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/climatechange/effects.htm

After keeping track of my water usage for a week and thinking about ways I waste water in general, I have realized that there are a lot of easy ways I could be conserving water that I just never gave a second thought before. I could conserve water by making a compost been instead of using the garbage disposal. I have a garden at my house, so I could use the compost as fertilizer for the plants and save on resources in two different ways at once. Plus it would help to retain moisture in the ground. I could also keep an a better eye on my water bill to make sure that there are no leaks in my house, as leaks can cause tens of thousands of gallons of water to be wasted if not caught early on. I tend to spend a lot of time in the shower, so I could try to cut down on shower times, or even failing that I could get a more water-efficient showerhead. Another way to conserve water would be to set my lawnmower’s setting higher, since longer grass will allow the ground to retain more moisture and will provide shade for plant roots. Even little things like turning off the water while brushing my teeth or washing my hands could save a significant amount of resources. (Source: http://www.wateruseitwisely.com/100-ways-to-conserve/index.php