New satellite photos show that lakes around the world are disappearing at alarming rates. NASA posted images last week that show the Aral Sea in Central Asia, previously known as the fourth largest lake, has been drained dry.
Known as one of the world's largest bodies of water, the Aral Sea has been disappearing rapidly over the last 14 years as a result of failed efforts to create farms in the desert during the Soviet era. In the 1960s, the Soviet Union began to irrigate its waters and surrounding areas to bring crops to Kazakhstan, Uzbekisan and Turkmenistan. Most of the water was soaked up by the dry ground and was wasted.
"This is the first time the eastern basin has completely dried in modern times," says Philip Micklin, a geographer emeritus from Western Michigan University and an Aral Sea expert.
The damage done is seen in the images from NASA's Terra satellite. Taken from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), the series of images began in 2000, when a drastic portion of the sea was already drained. The body of water, which once stretched for 26,000 square miles, was spilt into two smaller bodies: the Northern and Southern Aral Seas. The Southern Aral Sea then receded more, shrinking into two lobes that are connected at the top and bottom by narrow channels.
After a four-year drought from 2005 to 2009, the lobes continued to disappear. The Sea is now dry, except for around the edges. This has led to colder winters and hotter and drier summers.
China's largest freshwater lake, Poyang Lake is also disappearing as a result of drought. In Iran, Lake Oroumieh shrunk by 80 percent over the past 10 years. Once one of the biggest saltwater lakes on Earth, the shrinkage is due to climate change and expanded irrigation. Salt-covered rocks that were once found at he bottom of the lake are now seen on the dry desert.
Sinkholes are developing in the Dead Sea because of factors like the use of the Jordan River for drinking water and the removal of valuable minerals from the water. Surface levels have receded by 30 to 40 percent.
The effects of climate change have also effected the U.S.. Drought has caused California's Cachuma Lake to disappear rapidly, and Hawaii's Lake Waiau has declined to two percent of its normal water level over the past five years.
