Asian Drought Continuing, Growing Worse - No Relief Until May

[hatrack]

BANGKOK - "A severe Asian drought has left millions of people struggling to find water, damaged crops from India to China and cost millions of dollars in lost exports.

In hard-hit Vietnam, desperate farmers burned thorns off cactus to feed the water-storing plants to their thirsty sheep, state television reported this week. Coffee farmers in Daklak, one of Vietnam's major coffee-producing provinces, are facing huge losses due to the dry weather expected to last until early May.

"The drought is serious and everybody is longing for rain," a resident of Buon Ma Thuot, the Daklak capital, told Reuters. Millions of people across Asia are becoming increasingly desperate for water, including southern China where farmers and city folk are feeling the pinch.

The region should get some rainfall in a few days, but it won't be enough for sugar, coffee, rice and other crops in Yunnan, Guangdong, Hainan and other provinces, the China Daily said. "So far this winter, precipitation has been 50 to 80 percent less than a normal year in the three provinces, making it difficult for millions of rural residents to find sufficient drinking water," the newspaper said."

EDIT

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/29839/story.htm

[cliss]

1. I've read that wars will be fought

over oil and water.

Does anyone have any ideas about what's causing this?

[Boomer]

2. Pick a cause, any cause...

a) climate change
b) over-use of limited resources by a growing population
c) mis-use of land for commercially valuable crops not suited to the local ecology
d) all the above

[phantom power]

3. generically: climate changes brought on by global warming

The consensus among climate scientists is that it's greenhouse warming, and at least a large fraction of that is being caused by us.

[fedsron2us]

4. Drought in Asia. Floods and snow in California

This is the classic signature of El Nino.

[phantom power]

5. I heard something about a theory that El Nino is becoming

more frequent, and more intense. I don't know if it's been tested rigorously.

[Boomer]

6. Makes sense

The predicted effect of global warming is to make weather extremes more frequent. Heat is energy, and more energy is being poured into the weather system, resulting in greater activity, ie volatility.

[kineneb]

7. Yup. Time for row boat and hip waders here.

And I live near a large lake. Damn.

-from "sunny" nothern CA