Story submitted by Eric Worrall. The Guardian, a green UK daily newspaper, has published a claim that climate change will disrupt shipping in the Panama Canal, preventing children in America from receiving their Chinese manufactured toys.
According to The Guardian;
“As extreme weather events create periods of flood and drought, they threaten the consistent water supply that the canal needs to operate.”
Panama is apparently suffering a drought, which is limiting the supply of fresh water from Gatun Lake and Alajuela Lake, water which is required to operate the canal.
“That could increase shipping times and costs of everything from Christmas toys and electronics moving from China to New York to midwest corn and wheat bound for the west coast of South America.
It’s too soon to know how exactly more extreme weather will affect canal operations. But while industries that do business through the canal are taking a wait-and-see approach, the Panama Canal Authority is paying close attention to models that suggest future climate trends.”
Seriously folks – how can we continue to doubt Mann made global warming, when the Guardian has so clearly demonstrated that if we don’t switch to driving electric cars, our children will miss out on their toys at Christmas?
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The water can also be used for a second ship going the other way. And, it seems that the “dry season” water shortfall is something known about for years, from Wikipedia entry on the Panama Canal:
Gatun Lake is filled with rainwater, and the lake accumulates excess water during wet months. The water is lost to the oceans at a rate of 101,000 m3 (26,700,000 US gal; 22,200,000 imp gal) per downward lock cycle. Since a ship will have to go upward to Gatun Lake first and then descend, a single passing will cost double the amount; but the same waterflow cycle can be used for another ship passing in the opposite direction. The ship’s submerged volume is not relevant to this amount of water. During the dry season, when there is less rainfall, there is also a shortfall of water in Gatun Lake.
Apparently, the Canal Authority isn’t as worried about this as The Guardian, since there’s no mention of drought related issues on their website or news releases that I could find. http://www.pancanal.com/eng/pr/press-releases/
In fact, all the 2014 press releases seem to be about expansion. And in this notice, they are talking about adding a city for drinking water services to their list of cities already served.
The canal watershed maintains the reserve of this valuable natural resource. As well as being the principal source of water required for vessel transits, the canal watershed provides 95% of the drinking water for the inhabitants of the cities of Colon, Panama, San Miguelito and in the near future, Chorrera.
Me thinks the Guardian doth protest too much.
-Anthony
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Shippers could always switch to the Northwest Passage. What’s all the worry about?
Add it to the list of amazing ( and often contradictory) things that CO2 can do.
Maybe they are planning to enlarge the canal because they are concerned there won’t be enough water because of climate change, just like they are building a new airport in Kirbati (to accommodate tourists) because the Island might drown because of rising sea levels.
They have been predicting this for years now
Officials with the Panama Canal Authority, managers of the locks and reservoirs since the United States relinquished control of the canal in 1999, warn that global warming, increased shipping traffic and bigger seagoing vessels could cripple the canal’s capacity to operate within a decade. CNN November 1, 2000
Is there anything that “global warming” CAN’T do??? What’s next? Whitens teeth but causes gingivitis? Split ends, but easier management? Cakes and quiches to fall? Cars won’t start, but it’s ok, because it also causes Brake Failure?!?!?
Ain’t going to be no need for a bitty canal with global warmin’ . Ain’t gonna be any central Panama.
I wish I had not read this entry just before going to bed.
China’s problem, ain’t it?
Since the solution to CO2 is a carbon tax, the analogous solution to this H2O problem would be a hydrogen tax.
Or maybe a hydrogen trading scheme, or hydrogen credits that you could buy and sell on a hydrogen exchange.
How about adding 10% ethanol to stretch out the supply?
Is there anything that “global warming” CAN’T do??
Climate change is like Allah; omnipotent, omniscient, but definitely not omnibenevolent.
H.R.
Shippers could always switch to the Northwest Passage. What’s all the worry about?
Of course 🙂 – wish I’d thought of that..
I lived in Panama for a few years in the mid-1980s. There was a drought during the early part of my tenure and much worry about there not being enough water for the canal. These days, when conversation occasionally turns to the second, wider Panama canal I raise the possibility of there not being enough water for the projected increased traffic. Nothing to do with climate change.
On the bright side, even if the loss of rainfall shuts down the canal, in the long run the rising sea level, will, soon enough, allow ships to sail between North and South America over the top of what we now call Central America. Every cloud has its silver lining.
If one projects a linear trend onto the Antarctic Sea Ice, Panama will be plugged with ice in X years.
The list of things global warming can do is amazing.
Who needs magic when there is global warming.
Oh wait global warming of the CAGW kind is about as real as magic.
I know, lets bomb the canal to let the relentlessly rising sea water have proper access.
Is it just me or I we drifting toward” Enough already, get some rope”?
Stupidity and mindless mendacity of these levels must be rewarded.
Well, at today’s actual rate of of increase in Antarctic sea ice extents, the Straits of Magellan (Cape Horn, 56 south latitude) will closed to sea traffic within 8-12 years.
Time to build that sea-level canal through Nicaragua that Roosevelt rejected 114 years ago..
Don’t worry, Canada has plenty of fresh water and we’ll ship as mush as is needed.
Oh wait…. OK, never mind.
OK, so Canada has plenty of fresh water and we’ll build a pipeline.
Oh wait… Obama said only if it doesn’t increase emissions, so…. never mind.
A competing canal will be more disruptive.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/08/14/340402716/nicaragua-banks-on-its-own-canal-to-boost-economy
Snow. Canada has plenty of snow. We’ll ship it by rail.
Oooops, my children don’t even know what snow is. Never mind.
Just drag some of those disappearing ice bergs down there before the Arctic becomes ice-free last year 😉
Lets see now, Wikipedia says: “Gatun Lake has an area of 425 km2 (164 sq mi) at its normal level of 26 m (85 ft) above sea level; it stores 5.2 cubic kilometres (183,000,000,000 ft³) of water, which is about as much as the Chagres River brings down in an average year.” Maybe this data is a bit out of date – but about to stop the ships moving along the Canal? Really? What a bunch of wankers (as we Aussies say)!
Check out the Wikipedia entry for
Panama Canal expansion project and search for “water saving basins” There are there locks in series each with water saving basins.
It seems like the new locks and the old locks both save water, but differently.
The old locks are a pair of locks that work in synchronization. The descending locks fill the ascending locks.
The new locks, bigger than the old, are only one lane. the water saving basins are used, rater than fill neighboring locks.
Correction to 9:17 pm
The old locks are a pair of locks that work in synchronization. The descending locks fill the ascending locks.
No, I’m wrong about this. With the old locks, the descending lock is filling the next lock down in the step.
world’s best palindrome — a word or phrase that reads the same backwards or forwards — an oldie but a goodie.
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama
The Panama Canal is SO 19th. Century! Back in the 1980s, American President Line (now American President Company) developed an intermodal system where the cargo containers were unloaded from the container ships in Los Angeles then put on rail cars in Los Angeles and shipped overland to the east coast. (You couldn’t get a “double stacked” train through the tunnels in the Sierras east of Oakland/San Francisco so they lost out.) That cut 4 to 6 days off the transit through the canal. It is also part of the reason United States Lines went under; they got only the low revenue cargo. So…not to worry, the children will STILL get their toys!
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewet’s evil twin)