Earth  ID: 11284

Mapping Drought

Story by Adam P. Voiland Released on July 30, 2013
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Scientists model changes in water storage related to weather, climate and seasonal patterns.
In 2012, the continental United States suffered through one of its worst droughts in decades. With another summer upon us, drought continues to be a problem for many parts of the country. Using data from NASA’s GRACE satellites and other satellite and ground-based measurements, scientists have created maps that show the amount of water in the U.S. stored near the surface and underground from August 2002 through May 2013. The maps provide two views of monthly changes in water storage: the wetness in the “root zone," or the top meter of soil, and the ground water storage in shallow aquifers. The color-coded maps express how much water is stored as a probability of occurrence from 1948 to 2009, where red colors represent places that are dryer than normal, and blue colors represent places that are wetter than normal. Watch the visualization to see how water storage in the U.S. changes over time.
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The darkest red regions represent dry conditions that should occur only 2 percent of the time (about once every 50 years).
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This image shows root zone soil moisture on June 3, 2013. Portions of Arizona, Nevada and California are extremely dry, even by desert standards.
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This image shows ground water storage on June 3, 2013. The Rocky Mountain states and most of Texas appear abnormally dry.
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The maps are based on data collected by NASA's GRACE satellites, which launched into space in 2002.

For More Information

NASA Earth Observatory

Story Credits

Visualizer/Animator:
Robert Simmon (Sigma Space Corporation)

Lead Writer:
Adam P. Voiland (Sigma Space Corporation)

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Earth Observatory
Maps courtesy of NDMC/C. Poulsen and NASA/GSFC/GRACE/M. Rodell
GRACE image courtesy of NASA

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https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11284

Keywords:
NASA Science >> Earth
SVS >> App