Gallery: Stunning Images Show the Earth's Imperiled Water
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Situated on the north shore of Kauai, the Napali Coast is a rugged coastline formed by volcanic activity and erosion from water and wind. Kauai is one of the rainiest places on earth, but climate change---which brings rising seas, stronger storms, and ocean acificication---is drying out this coastal ecosystem.
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Off the coast of Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia, the Bajau Laut sea nomads have fished and lived off the ocean for generations. But ocean acidification threatens their way of life, and many of them have settled into stilted houses above the water. The acidification is killing the coral reef organisms below the surface, which destroys habitat for the fish that keep the Bajau Laut alive.
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Australia suffers from regular, and sometimes severe, droughts. The last major drought lasted from 2006 to 2012, affecting agriculture in the southwest of Australia, where the salinization of soil dried out what precious arable land there is. These salt pools vary in color due to algae that lives on the surface.
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In Greenland, ice streams from melting glaciers form and freeze. Scientists are keenly watching how the gigantic island---covered in gigantic glaciers---is melting in response to global warming.
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At the end of the ice age, the Sahara was a savanna. But about 5,000 years ago, natural changes in climate shifted it to a sandy wasteland. Pollen data from Lake Yoa in Chad, collected by geologists at the University of Cologne, revealed a record of the Saharan climate for the last 11,000 years. Over time, floral pollen gathered on the bottom of the lake, and the sample cores dated back to when the Sahara was once a far greener place.
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Russia’s Lena Delta is one of the largest river deposits in the world. Last year, scientists sampled ice wedges from deep within the delta, and used the data to construct Siberian climate archive. Thawing permafrost is nothing new to the polar regions, but the ice cores reveal a warming curve beginning at the end of the Pleistocene, and spiking suddenly in the last few hundred years. As the ice melts, it releases stored greenhouse gases.
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The erosion-sloped island of Hopen sits off the coast of Norway. During winter, polar bears have historically migrated between the islands and mainland using polar ice, but rising temperatures and melting ice make it increasingly more difficult for the bears to pass.
