GabyDongral Ryu, a professor of hydrology at the University of Melbourne, and his colleague Ki-Won So have reported that global warming has significantly reduced the amount of water available worldwide, particularly in soils, lakes, and rivers. This poses irreversible threats to agriculture. Meanwhile, sea levels continue to rise steadily. What did the scientists reveal? According to the researchers, the substantial loss of water from land to the ocean is especially perilous for farmers. Over the past 20 years, the Earth’s soil moisture has decreased by more than 2,000 gigatons, they noted. For comparison, this figure is more than double the ice loss from Greenland between 2002 and 2006.
At the same time, the frequency of agricultural and environmental droughts has increased, sea levels have risen, and the Earth’s poles have shifted. To confirm that our planet currently retains less water on land than it once did, Professor Ryu’s team utilized three different data sources. He stated that the study’s findings unveiled a deeper truth about the land that farmers must confront: when drought is followed by dramatic events of heavy rainfall and massive flooding, it does not mean that underground water reserves will be replenished.
“It seems that the land has lost its elasticity and cannot return to its former state,” Professor Ryu said. The return of this elasticity will depend on how humanity responds to climate change and how they adjust their approach to water usage.
Meanwhile, plants are experiencing significant heat stress. Agriculture, particularly irrigated farming, continues to consume more water than is sustainable. Additionally, people are not reducing greenhouse gas emissions or making serious efforts to rectify the situation, as reported by Phys.org. In the future, Earth may face long-term climate changes similar to those of the past, “and they are likely to reverse the described trend, but probably not within our lifetime,” noted Katherine Jacobs, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Arizona (USA), who was not involved in the study. “As greenhouse gases continue to drive global warming in the future, the rate of evaporation and transpiration is unlikely to decrease anytime soon,” she added.
The study also confirmed an explanation for the slight fluctuations in the Earth’s rotation. The team found that these fluctuations are also caused by changes in the planet’s moisture levels. Luis Samaniego, a professor of hydrology at the University of Potsdam (Germany), emphasized that this discovery is not just fascinating—it serves as a deeply concerning signal. Imagine the planet’s fluctuations as an electrocardiogram of Earth, he said. Seeing this result is akin to discovering an arrhythmia. The study’s findings were published in the journal Science.
