Researchers say the Global Positioning System, which helps drivers navigate the roads and which monitors tiny movements of the earth’s surface as a possible indicator of developing earthquakes, has measured the huge loss of water due to severe drought in the West, says National Geographic. Some 240 billion tonnes, the equivalent of a 4-inch layer of water from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean is gone. Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography calculated the water loss by measuring the uplift in the earth surface from removal of the water’s weight.
The Sierra Nevada Mountains have risen by 15 millimeters, more than half an inch. The median change is 4 millimeters, less than one-sixth of an inch.
Rainfall in the deserts of southeastern California over the past few weeks “has been many times normal” and reduced the severity of drought, said the weekly Drought Monitor. “Unfortunately, rainfall in this arid region will have no impact on the water shortages and seriously low reservoir stores reported throughout the state.”
Clovis, New Mexico, has applied for federal grant money for a program that would pay farmers $400 an acre to stop irrigating their crops, says KRQE-TV in Albuquerque. If growers accept the money, they would convert to dry-land farming. City officials say the Ogallala aquifer is being depleted.