2,000-year-old lake undergoes radical change in just 5 years, satellite images show

A summer lake destination in Paine, Chile, isn't as popular as it once was because the body of water, Laguna de Aculeo, has vanished from the face of the Earth. Newly released NASA photos show the once sprawling lake, which covered an area four times the size of New York City's famed Central Park and was part of the natural habitat for 2,000 years, has dried up -- and it's happened mostly within the span of just five years.

According to AFP, less than a decade ago, the lake, which is situated on the southern outskirts of Santiago, was a bustling summertime attraction as tourists flocked there to water ski and swim in the lake, or take camping trips on its shores and to dine in the waterfront restaurants that festooned its coastline.

Nowadays, the area has turned into a barren stretch of land, marked with dried-up dead grass and the bones of animals that have perished along with Aculeo's demise.

Scientists say numerous factors have contributed to Lake Aculeo's fate, and one of the most critical factors in the lake's disappearance has been a lack of rain. Since 2010, an intense and persistent drought has parched Santiago and the rest of central Chile, reducing rainfall by an average of 25 to 45 percent every year.

"Our data for Santiago shows below-normal rainfall every year since 2007, including years with as little as one third of normal, which is about 10 inches (200 mm)," AccuWeather Meteorologist Jim Andrews said.

“Droughts are not uncommon here given our semiarid Mediterranean climate,” Rene Garreaud, an Earth scientist at the Universidad de Chile, in Santiago, told NASA's Adam Voiland in a recent interview. “But this decade-long dry spell is unprecedented in the 20th century and very rare in the past 1,000 years, according to tree-ring studies that make it possible to reconstruct past climate patterns.”

"There is a very delicate balance here between inflow and water level in the lake," Andrews added. "The watershed feeding the lake is rather small, so prolonged drought would certainly put downward pressure on water level."

According to Andrews, for many years the lake has been tapped for irrigation of nearby dry lands, which are not productive otherwise.

"This, no doubt, has put further pressure on the delicate hydrological balance sustaining the lake," Andrews said.

Garreaud estimates that about half of the water losses since 2010 are the result of the drought. The rest of the losses relate to irrigation and increased water consumption.

Coupled with that, a major precipitation decline has been observed in central Chile dating all the way back to the late 1970s.

According to Andrews, yearly rainfall since the 1980s has roughly halved from a normal yearly rainfall of about 350 mm, or 14 inches.

To find the causes of this trend, scientists studying the megadrought analyze local rain gauge data and compare them to sea-surface temperature‐forced simulations.

Scientists attribute about a quarter of its intensity and severity to global warming. They attribute the rest to natural cycles in atmospheric circulation, ocean temperatures and rainfall patterns, such as those associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is a long-term ocean fluctuation of the Pacific Ocean, which waxes and wanes approximately every 20 to 30 years.

"The setting for the lake is unusual, geologically speaking. It seems that sediment carried off the high, rugged Andes to the east, especially amid the wetter climate of the Ice Age, blocked drainage from the coastal mountain valley that holds the lake," Andrews said.

While runoff from the fields and orchards surrounding the lake has been a key source of water in the past, the flow has declined as irrigation systems have become more efficient. For example, the replacement of drip irrigation dramatically reduces the amount of leftover water.

"The climate is much like California’s, having dry, warm summers and cool, occasionally rainy winters. Not far different from San Jose," Andrews said.

"The lake is, or was, shallow, so the volume is low compared to area, making it prone to evaporative loss. Also, the lake apparently dried up altogether last year," Andrews said. According to NASA, the lake was about 20 feet deep when it was thriving. Now, there's barely a puddle left.

All that remains is crust of dried mud and a smattering of green vegetation. The before-and-after photos taken by NASA's Operational Land Imager on its Landsat 8 satellite illustrate in dramatic fashion the change that's happened there in just half a decade.

But the effects of the lake drying up go far beyond remarkable satellite images.

Residents and business owners said that without the lake to draw in customers, their profits dried up along with the lake.

"The lake disappeared, tourism disappeared, the campsite died, the businesses died, everything," a local resident told AFP.

Without the water, livestock were left scavenging for food and often dying of thirst and hunger.

Residents around the area, recalling that the region wasn't always choked by drought, are still hopeful that future precipitation will replenish the lake and their livelihoods.

Camila Nunez, 20, told AFP she's heard stories of a time when it rained frequently and heavily, but lamented that she seldom sees rain herself these days. "My grandparents remember when torrential rains fell for a minimum of a week," Nunez said. "And today, if it's raining for two days, we're lucky,"

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