Climate change means shortfalls in Colorado River water deliveries

Scripps researchers find that currently scheduled water deliveries from the Colorado River are unlikely to be met if human-caused climate change reduces runoff in the region

		IMAGE: Hoover Dam, with Lake Mead behind it, generates 4 billion kilowatt hours per year. Click here for more information.

The Colorado River system supplies water to tens of millions of people and millions of acres of farmland, and has never experienced a delivery shortage. But if human-caused climate change continues to make the region drier, scheduled deliveries will be missed 60-90 percent of the time by the middle of this century, according to a pair of climate researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego.