GEOG 1070 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Amu Darya, Salt Lake, Humidity
5 Aug 2016
School
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Fourth largest saline lake, located between kazakhstan and uzbekistan. Amu darya and syr darya feed into it. 1960s, diverted rivers for agricultural purposes, dries out aral basin, and lots of water wasted from desert soak up. Basin is only sustainable if flow in= evaporated water loss. Increased salinity (more concentrated), causes fish population to decrease. The changes affecting the aral sea are not directly from human changes, but from the environments reaction to stress society caused. Dropped 23 meters since water diversion (1960s) Inflow from river, evaporation, precipitation rates, groundwater inflow. Groundwater inflow remained same, but net evaporation decreased. Water level drop is accelerating, explained by positive feedback between evaporation and sea surface. Temperature: cycle: lake loses water shallower heats up faster surface temp increases, lowers specific humidity at surface increases rate of evaporation. Leads to vertical stratification (rapid change in water temp at vertical region) surface has lower salt concentration than bottom, thus top heats even faster.
