Water, the catalytic shapeshifter
Comprehending the roles of water in the climate change narrative
Explain like I’m a memer
Shapeshifting creatures or simply, shape-shifters have been a common feature in folklore and mythology. The ichchadhari naag (shape shifting serpent) in India, werewolves in the western world and the Greek Proteus are some shape-shifters who have found wide acclaim through books and movies. While some of them have found a benevolent portrayal, others have been exhibited with demonic malevolence. I couldn't help but view water in a similar light.
Water is a shapeshifter which embodies both benevolence and malevolence. However, its choice of spirit varies with its shape. As freshwater, it is our lifeline but as a flood, it chokes life. As ocean water, it nurtures the marine ecosystem but as vapour (moisture) it is a GHG which absorbs and radiates heat. Historically, nature has had its way to keep water’s two facedness in balance, however, human activity, since the last century, has triggered a higher frequency of its malevolence in the form of extreme events - torrential rainfall, receding glaciers, permafrost thawing, floods…Yet, water has largely been kept on mute in the mainstream climate change narrative.
Do you remember the last time you thought of water when thinking of climate change?
Why is the discussion on water x climate important?
Well, >70% of Earth’s surface is occupied by water. Just like the human body.
As the planet heats up, its majority shareholder (i.e. water) shifts shapes at a pace with which we, the minority shareholders, can’t really keep up. We can’t keep up because of not only the higher frequency of change but also the catalytic effect thereof on other natural processes. Catalytic shapeshifting.
Hence, not talking about water in a climate change discussion is like studying Physics but forgetting to understand gravity.
Understanding catalytic shapeshifting deeper
Simply put, it’s basic science of heat converting solid form of water to liquid and liquid to vapour but with far reaching consequences.
Let’s understand this through the four most commonly witnessed changes.
Permafrost thawing
For TLDR, refer infographic below.
Permafrost is a permanently frozen ground (incl. the soil, rock, organic matter and ice) for atleast two consecutive years, commonly found in the Arctic, Antarctic and mountainous regions across the world. Global permafrost is one of the largest terrestrial carbon sinks estimated to hold 1,600 billion tons of carbon.
Trivia: One million sq. kms of Siberia, Canada, and Alaska contain pockets of Yedoma - thick deposits of permafrost from the last ice age - which is estimated to hold 130 billion tonnes of organic carbon1.
Just as you thaw your frozen food, atmospheric heat thaws permafrost leaving behind an exposed layer of soil and water. Plant matter frozen in permafrost doesn’t decay, but when permafrost thaws, microbes within the dead plant material start to break the matter down, releasing the stored carbon (CO2 and methane) into the atmosphere. Further, it destabilizes the area as the soil erodes alongwith the ice turned into water, leaving behind giant sinkholes and a shaky infrastructure. The eroded soil sediments the rivers which further damages dams and turbines2.
Melting ice and retreating glaciers
As the heating of the planet intensifies, ice, snow and glaciers are rapidly melting. Interestingly, only 0.5% of the water found on our planet is usable freshwater, a lot of which is stored in ice form. For instance, the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) range which stretches 3,500 kms. from Afghanistan to Myanmar has the largest volume of ice on Earth outside the polar regions. The melt water from this range flows into 12 rivers which provide freshwater to 2 billion people (on the mountains and downstream) in 16 countries. With the current trajectory of global emissions and consequent temperature increase, researchers estimate that 80% of current glacier volume at HKH will be lost by 21003.
As the melting accelerates, we surely will have a lot of water in the rivers to consume in the short term - peak water availability is predicted around 2050 - but it will steadily decrease towards the end of the century4. However, even the short term benefit may be eclipsed by the real possibility of floods caused by glacial lakes (GLOFs) and landslides in mountains.
It doesn’t end here. As rivers merge with the sea and the volume of liquid water rapidly increases, it ultimately raises the sea level which puts coastal habitats at supreme risk of sinking. Actually, this is already happening across Asian cities which are sinking 7 times faster than the average sea level rise (3 mm/year) with Jakarta (Indonesia) leading the sinking game. In Timbulsloko village of Indonesia, residents are already living the water villa life of Maldives sans the luxury, calm and hygiene. They have been forced to adapt to a perpetually flooded neighbourhood and a ‘wet’ life as areas around it continue to sink at the rate of 20 cm per year.
As sea levels rise, groundwater is also at risk of salinization leading to a further shortage in available freshwater for life to survive.
Drought
Today, about two billion people still don’t have the luxury of tasting safe drinking water5. With heat evaporating available water sources to the extent of making groundwater zero, water poverty only gets amplified. As per a Bloomberg report, parts of Spain are currently reeling under severe drought. Europe and drought never felt synonymous before.
Torrential rainfall (with extreme weather changes)
Water is complex and paradoxical - while rising global temperatures expedite droughts as more water evaporates from the land, it also increases the moisture the atmosphere can hold, resulting in storms and heavy rains. This has caused a chaotic global weather pattern change. Excess rainfall leads to floods which, by the way, have gone up in frequency by 134% since 2000 in comparison to the previous two decades.
Phew! That’s been a lot to absorb (pun intended). Enough of the malevolence.
How to trigger the benevolent side of water?
Recall the cooling effect you feel when walking past freshly watered trees or parks. The same concept has been the subject of research in the context of cooling urban spaces. In an earlier post, Green houses to combat greenhouse (gases), we came across the Urban Heat Island effect. To counter this effect, creation of a blue-green infrastructure has been found useful. This entails building and restoration of water bodies (ponds, lakes, streams) in and around green urban spaces to create a Water Cool Island (WCI) effect. A research conducted in Wuhan, China (well, yeah :P) has established that the WCI effect of water bodies lowered land surface temperature, on an average, by 5.5°C. Another research undertaken in the Indian cities of Chandigarh and Ahmedabad, yielded a similar conclusion. This means that constructing large connected water bodies across urban spaces holds significant potential in lowering local temperatures.
Wetlands such as mangroves, marshes and swamps are considered to be effective carbon sinks which also provide a natural shield against storm surges and absorb excess water and precipitation. All we need to do is not ruin their existence. Preserve them in their original state. This may sound easy but given where we are, additional effort is necessary to achieve something which otherwise would have only required our inaction.
Reading thus far, the benevolent side of water may have felt insignificant in comparison to the long list of its malevolence but if you zoom out, you’ll see the 80/20 rule in play. Let’s see how.
If you’ve read most of my previous posts, you may have realized how everything is interconnected in the game of climate change. ALL our actions add to or subtract from the rising heat. Now, if you paired water’s benevolent side (‘20’ in the 80/20 rule) along with a few other heat reducing actions, 80% of the malevolence could be taken care of!
Additional reads for the (more) curious souls: