MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Michael Snyder, ETF Daily News -“The worst drought in more than 50 years is having a devastating impact on the Mississippi River. The Mississippi has become very thin and very narrow, and if it keeps on dropping there is a very real possibility that all river traffic could get shut down. And considering the fact that approximately 60 percent of our grain (NYSEARCA:JJG), 22 percent of our oil (NYSEARCA:USO) and natural gas (NYSEARCA:UNG), and and one-fifth of our coal travel down the Mississippi River, that would be absolutely crippling for our economy. It has been estimated that if all Mississippi River traffic was stopped that it would cost the U.S. economy 300 million dollars a day. So far most of the media coverage of this historic drought has focused on the impact that it is having on farmers and ranchers, but the health of the Mississippi River is also absolutely crucial to the economic success of this nation, and right now the Mississippi is in incredibly bad shape. In some areas the river is already 20 feet below normal and the water is expected to continue to drop. If we have another 12 months of weather ahead of us similar to what we have seen over the last 12 months then the mighty Mississippi is going to be a complete and total disaster zone by this time next year.

Most Americans simply do not understand how vitally important the Mississippi River is to all of us. If the Mississippi River continues drying up to the point where commercial travel is no longer possible, it would be an absolutely devastating blow to the U.S. economy.

Unfortunately, vast stretches of the Mississippi are already dangerously low.” Read more.

Closing The Mighty Mississippi Will Affect People All Over The Country – “The Mississippi river is drying up and some shipping companies are worried that the drought of 1988 may be repeated, a time when the river dried up so much that barge traffic came to a standstill. In 1988 the shipping industry lost $1 billion, a number that would be far higher in 2012 and could be reached in as little as three days. Almost all of the rivers 2,500 miles are experiencing some type of low water level. Just outside of Memphis the river is 13 feet below normal depth while the National Weather Service says Vicksburg, Mississippi is 20 feet below normal levels… Closing the Mississippi will affect people all over the country, barges, tugboats and towboats ship petroleum, grain, fertilizer, sand, gravel, steel and other items that will raise in price if their means of transportation are severed for much of the United States. According to Time, ‘About 60% of the country’s grain exports and one-fifth of its coal is transported along the nation’s inland waterway system.'” Read more.

ENS – “The climate’s ‘new normal’ for most of the coming century will parallel the long-term drought that hit western North America from 2000 to 2004 – the most severe drought in 800 years – scientists report in a study published Sunday.

‘The severity and incidence of climatic extremes, including drought, have increased as a result of climate warming,’ the researchers said, adding that these long-term trends are consistent with a 21st century ‘megadrought.’

Crops and forests died and river basins dried, but as bad as conditions were during the 2000-04 drought, in the future they may be seen as the good old days, a group of 10 researchers warned Sunday in the journal ‘Nature Geoscience.’

Climate models and precipitation projections indicate this period will be closer to the ‘wet end’ of a drier hydroclimate during the last half of the 21st century, the scientists said.

‘Climatic extremes such as this will cause more large-scale droughts and forest mortality, and the ability of vegetation to sequester carbon is going to decline,’ said Beverly Law, a co-author of the study, professor of global change biology and terrestrial systems science at Oregon State University, and former science director of AmeriFlux, an ecosystem observation network.

The 2000-04 drought had the effect of amplifying climate change as vegetation withered and could no longer take up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

This drought cut carbon sequestration by an average of 51 percent in the western United States, Canada and Mexico, the scientists calculate, although some areas were hit much harder than others. As the plants died, they released more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with the effect of amplifying global warming.

‘During this drought, carbon sequestration from this region was reduced by half,’ Law said. ‘That’s a huge drop. And if global carbon emissions don’t come down, the future will be even worse.'” Read more.

By Andrew Gully, AFP – “The drought in America’s breadbasket is intensifying at an unprecedented rate, experts warned, driving concern food prices could soar if crops in the world’s key producer are decimated.

The US Drought Monitor reported a nearly threefold increase in areas of extreme drought over the past week in the nine Midwestern states where three quarters of the country’s corn and soybean crops are produced.

‘That expansion of D3 or extreme conditions intensified quite rapidly and we went from 11.9 percent to 28.9 percent in just one week,’ Brian Fuchs, a climatologist and Drought Monitor author, told AFP.

‘For myself, studying drought, that’s rapid. We’ve seen a lot of things developing with this drought that were unprecedented, especially the speed.’

Almost two thirds of the continental United States are now suffering drought conditions, the largest area recorded since the Drought Monitor project started in 1999.

‘If you are following the grain prices here in the US, they are reflecting the anticipated shortages with a price increase,’ Fuchs said.

‘In turn, you’re going to see those price increases trickle into the other areas that use those grain crops: cattle feed, ethanol production and then food stuffs.’

In some rural areas, municipal water suppliers are talking about mandatory restrictions because they have seen such a dramatic drop in the water table that they fear being unable to fulfill deliveries to customers, Fuchs said.

‘Things have really developed over the last two months and conditions have worsened just that quick and that is really unprecedented,’ he added.

‘Definitely exports are going to suffer because there is going to be less available and the markets are already reflecting that.

‘It’s anticipated that this drought is going to persist through the next couple of months at least and conditions are not overly favorable to see any widespread improvement.'” Read more.