One Of Northern China's Largest Lakes Dries Up - AFP

[hatrack]

One of north China's largest lakes has dried up, threatening the survival of rare birds, state media said Wednesday. Anguli Nur lake, in Hebei province neighboring Beijing, was once four meters (13 feet) deep and covered 6,000 hectares (14,820 acres), the Xinhua news agency said.

But continuous drought and over-exploitation of water by the Bashang area of nearby Zhangjiakou city caused the lake to dry up, Xinhua said.

Lack of water in the lake will likely endanger 10,000 hectares of surrounding grassland, local residents said.

For centuries the lake also served as a major habitat of birds and fish, including some rare species of aquatic birds, the report said."

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/2004/041222114447.g62olz3b.html

[Chimpanzee]

1. Global warning is a sham, I tell ya!

[Xithras]

2. It doesn't take global warming to dry out a lake

Look up the history of Lake Tulare, once the largest lake in the US west of the Mississippi (bigger than Tahoe or the Salton Sea). Look up Lake Winnemucca, once one of the largest natural marsh lakes in Nevada, and one of the last remaining remnants of the Lahontan super-lake that covered much of Northern Nevada in the last ice age. Look up Owens Lake in the eastern Sierra's, which at one time captured much of the eastern Sierra runoff and was one of the biggest natural lakes in California.

None of these lakes exist today at all (Tulare is farmland, Winnemucca is sage desert, Owens is salt flats) and global warming had nothing to do with their disappearance. The real culprit here, just as in China, is water diversion. We take the water from the rivers and divert them to our cities, and the lakes that rely on that water go dry. The waters of the Tulare, Fresno, and Kaweah rivers today irrigate hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and feed millions of people. The waters that once fed Winnemucca today sate the thirst of Reno and Carson City. The water that once cascaded out of the mountains into Owens Lake today cascades out of faucets in Los Angeles.

Global warming isn't destroying these lakes, poorly planned human engineering is.

[htuttle]

3. That's what happened to the Aral Sea, too

I think most of it went toward growing cotton, IIRC. Now, there's a much smaller body of very salty water left.

[amandabeech]

4. And tremendous population growth in semi-arid and arid areas

that could not and perhaps cannot sustain it.

[Squatch]

5. Colorado River is a trickle when it reaches the Gulf of Baja

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16590

But, thank GOd the folks in Vegas have green golf courses.

[hatrack]

6. Most years it doesn't even make it to the Gulf

I think the last time was 1983, which was the year Glen Canyon Dam nearly failed - now that was a lot of water.