A vital waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the Panama Canal relies on fresh water supplied by a reservoir to raise and lower the locks that allow the transit of thousands of ships a year.
During times of drought, fewer vessels make it through.
A new paper by Northeastern University professor Samuel Muñoz reports that the risk of shipping disruptions will grow in a warming climate unless steps are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to adapt to drier conditions.
“The canal is vulnerable to drought. That vulnerability increases with climate change,” he says. “The models think that the more we warm things, the more severe and frequent these droughts become in Panama.”
The findings highlight the need to address a growing risk to a key link in the global supply chain with “proactive adaptation or mitigation” that maintains canal functionality, Muñoz says in research published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Read more at Northeastern Global News
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