So many bodies of water are drying up. I drove past what looked like a huge lake on the map a couple weeks ago, and saw only dry land. Lake mead is drying up and we are finding all kinds of fascinating things, but where does the water go?
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Drought, increased demand for water, and changes in precipitation patterns are resulting in lakes drying up faster around the world.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2012/02/29/why-are-the-worlds-lakes-disappearing/
I always thought:
The liquid water (lakes, wet earth,etc) evaporates… is moved by wind and condenses in colder areas (aka rain)… if the cold area is cold enough, rain becomes snow and is stored there => glaciers are formed, water is stored.
Ocean levels are rising, which means that more water ends up in oceans than before, leaving less for lakes and rivers. In addition, more and more water is distributed in other places than before (watering plants and fields to feed more and more people, and more watering is needed because it does not rain as much as before).
The cycle of water evaporating > becoming clouds > raining back on land > refilling lakes and rivers is disturbed because of climate change. The amount of water stays the same, the water is not lost, but it is distributed to other places, leading to draughts for rivers and lakes. Oceans cover 70% of the Earth‘s surface, so for those enormous areas of water to rise just a few inches, a gigantic amount of water has to be redistributed from glaciers, rivers and lakes.
it becomes storms, one man’s drought is another man’s flood
according to wikipedia fresh water is about 3% of the total water on earth so even if all the lakes of the world dry up (destroying human life as we know it) it wouldn’t really affect the global sea level
There’s a constant cycle within the planet of the same water in different forms (ice, vapor, liquid). The accumulation in each form and geographical location, varies depending on the climate and natural conditions.
Climate can influence the Gulf Stream and the Jet Stream, affecting the common cycle of water in all its forms. Those streams are like the radiator of the planet.
So, you might have drough in Lake Mead but there’s floods in China and Pakistan.
Copying my old comment since this is commonly asked in some form or another.
It can fall as precipitation, just somewhere else or in different conditions.
(Though technically it can also just not evaporate but that’s not really an issue with it getting warmer.)
Many areas saw record levels of flooding like [Montana](https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/17/us/gallery/montana-flooding-yellowstone/index.html), or are literally [currently underwater from flooding like Dallas.
](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/24/photos-flash-flooding-in-texas-forces-road-closures-and-rescues.html) [Seoul was hit with the most rain in 100 years](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/10/heavy-flood-damage-in-s-koreas-seoul-after-record-rains) and it killed several people.
Pakistan is currently having record breaking flooding as well.
Or it is falling still, but as quickly depleted rains [opposed to slow melting snow pack like in some areas of CA.] (https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/04/01/california-snowpack-summer-drought/) Where rain can even melt the snow and further make flooding an issue like what happened in Montana. So even if it is falling technically, snow melts slowly and can keep creeks and rivers sustained over time. Rain just washes away, and also melts snow on the ground.
Globally while there are droughts in some areas, there are also [deadly floods in others.](https://www.aljazeera.com/tag/floods/)
Specifically for Mead, there is still water flowing downstream for other lakes and rivers to provide water for other cities and ecosystems but less flowing in than out.
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