![]() “If it does not rain in May it will be a disaster,” he said. The majority of wheat and barley harvests on rainfed land will be lost, and on irrigated land will be cut by half, Costal told CNN. “There is no precedent,” said Martí Costal, head of water at the Young Farmers and Ranchers of Catalonia (JARC). The lack of water is having a catastrophic impact on farms across the region. Reservoir levels across Catalonia are hovering at around 25%, substantially lower than usual for this time of year. Its water levels are so low that a medieval village, flooded when the lake was created in the 1960s, has emerged, lending an eerie presence to the sun-baked lakebed.Īuthorities have been forced to siphon out water from the reservoir in an attempt to protect water quality and have had to remove native fish to stop them asphyxiating. Located about 60 miles north of Barcelona, the reservoir is a key drinking water source for the region, but in late April it was only at 7% of capacity. ![]() “This is the worst period that we have had for the last 100 years,” Samuel Reyes, director of the Catalan Water Agency, told CNN. “They are typical of Catalonia’s Mediterranean climate,” said Albert Ruhi, a freshwater ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who is originally from Catalonia.īut a significant lack of rain and snow have made this one much, much drier, he told CNN. It’s becoming increasingly hard to make ends meet as crops shrivel through lack of water – or cannot be planted at all.ĭroughts are a fact of life in this corner of Spain. The lack of water is starting to feel like an existential crisis for farmers such as Caudevilla and he is worried about the future of his profession. Nothing is going to be harvested,” he said.Ĭaudevilla, who grows maize, sorghum and other crops in Gimenells in Catalonia, has been hit hard by the severe drought which has hammered this part of northeastern Spain. “If the weather does not change it will be zero. If we can create a warning system with sufficient advanced notice and reliable accuracy then preventive or mitigating actions can be taken.Standing in his field of stunted, withered maize, Santi Caudevilla is very worried. The ultimate goal in studying space weather is to develop the ability to foretell events and conditions on the Sun before they reach Earth to warn the public and affected infrastructure about space weather events that may produce potentially harmful effects on society and the economy. Radiation hazards to orbiting astronauts and spacecraftĪs society's reliance on technological systems grows, so does our vulnerability to space weather.Aurora borealis, the northern lights, and aurora australis, the southern lights.The term space weather was coined to define this solar activity. In the 1960's space weather caused problems including outages and loss of data for weather satellites. When radio was invented in the early 1900's operators noticed that the sun interfered with radio transmissions.Ī geomagnetic storm CME ejected from the sun on Macaused transformer failure and the collapse of the Hydro-Québec power network on Maleading to a nine hour blackout that affected over 6 million people. In the mid-1800's disruptions of the telegraph system by solar flares were recorded including one event on Septemwhen telegraph service was disrupted for several days by a severe solar storm. In addition to communication disruptions and power line surges, radiation hazards, orbital satellite degradation and oil pipeline corrosion are also impacted by magnetic storms. Magnetic storms around our plant affect earth’s magnetosphere, upper atmosphere and disrupt our technology infrastructure. The earth’s magnetic field can be disrupted by solar flares and storms that create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) damaging electronic devices, communication systems, power grids, and global positioning systems. Heliophysics is the science of space weather. Solar flares affect the ionosphere with magnetic energy disrupting satellites, communication equipment, and radio navigation. Space weather includes solar wind, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections. Space weather describes conditions in the region of space close to earth especially the presence of electromagnetic radiation and charged particles emitted by the sun that can affect technology with the potential to endanger human life or health.
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