A study by German scientists has established that global warming is the likely cause of chronic water shortages in the river Elbe, and that they threaten to bring shipping to a standstill along one of the continent's main inland waterways. The study by the Institute of Climate Impact Research in the east German city of Potsdam is the result of six decades of continuous observation of water levels on the Elbe, which runs from the Czech Republic to the North Sea at Hamburg.
The scientists found that water levels had dropped so much during the past two decades that they had rendered the waterway impassable for barge traffic for periods of between four and six months in 1991, 1992, 2000 and 2003. Dr Frank Wechsung, who compiled the study, said: "If this trend continues, we can expect more frequent and more extremely low water levels on the river, which will make it even more difficult to use as a shipping route."
The institute's study says that the cause is lack of rain during the summer which has been induced by global warming. The scientists found that rainwater was not filling the Elbe as reliably as it did in the period 1950-1980, and that mean temperatures had increased in the region by 1C over the past 50 years. Over the past 30 years there had been an average of 123 days when no rain fell in the Elbe region, whereas during the preceding 30 years, there had been only 85 days without rain.
"Even if we assume that rainfall stays at its present level, it is still certain that temperatures will increase," Dr Wechsung said. "This means that moisture in the drainage areas which feed the Elbe will dry up before it reaches the river. But there is a high possibility that there will be even less summer rainfall in future," he added.
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http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article340017.ece
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