. Researchers at UCLA found the human-caused climate crisis is contributing significantly to the decline of the Colorado River, which runs through seven Western states and provides drinking and irrigation water for around 40 million people. Higher temperatures in the West have resulted in about a 10% decrease in the river’s flow in the last two decades, according to the study, which was published in the American Geophysical Union’s Water Resources Research.
“It’s increasing more across the snow-packed region as compared to regions without snowpack,” Bass said, noting that reductions of water are happening “twice as fast” in snowier regions. That’s in part due to a positive albedo effect – what happens when more snow melts with higher temperatures, exposing darker ground that absorbs still more heat.