US reservoirs are evaporating more quickly because of climate change

Climate change is increasing the rate of evaporation at reservoirs across the US. The effect is most consequential in the Southwest, where reservoir levels are already at record lows amid a megadrought and decades of overuse.

Huilin Gao at Texas A&M University and her colleagues modelled the effect of climate change on evaporation at US reservoirs. They looked at more than 670 reservoirs, representing almost 90 per cent of total US water storage.

Evaporation is driven …