By Rob Jordan
A new analysis of drought in Jordan (click here) – one of the world’s most water-poor countries – suggests that without alternate water sources, better land use and improved water-sharing agreements, the country could face a future of potentially disastrous droughts. The research, which was the first to analyze several types of drought and to take into account land use changes in upstream Syria, could inform water policies in other arid countries with shared rivers....
This is exactly what happened with Syria. There was extensive drought, the farmers could no longer supply food to the cities and went to the cities to live and find work. With the influx of people into the cities religious differences were exaggerated as competition for work and living space became more evident.
We cannot afford to have this tragedy occur in Jordan. If there is little water to find, there should be a consideration for a desalination plant. No different than Saudi Arabia. But, foremost Jordan should expect a plan from the USA to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. It is a moral issue.
There is also this:
13 February 2018
By NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Global sea level rise (click here) has been accelerating in recent decades, rather than increasing steadily, according to a new study based on 25 years of NASA and European satellite data.
This acceleration, driven mainly by increased melting in Greenland and Antarctica, has the potential to double the total sea level rise projected by 2100 when compared to projections that assume a constant rate of sea level rise, according to lead author Steve Nerem. Nerem is a professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, a fellow at Colorado's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), and a member of NASA's Sea Level Change team.
If the rate of ocean rise continues to change at this pace, sea level will rise 26 inches (65 centimeters) by 2100 -- enough to cause significant problems for coastal cities, according to the new assessment by Nerem and colleagues from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; CU Boulder; the University of South Florida in Tampa; and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The team, driven to understand and better predict Earth's response to a warming world, published their work Feb. 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences....
This is a wake up call to mayors of all coastal cities. Globally. The temperatures will increase as well without ice structures able to mitigate the heat caused by greenhouse gases.That melting includes Sibera as well. All the ice structures are disappearing.
