Utah’s Great Salt Lake disappearing; could turn the region into toxic dust bowl

euronews.com

9 points·alistairSH··4 comments

> It has already shrunk by two-thirds since the 1980s, from around 8,547 square kilometres to just 2,590, US Geological Survey data from last summer shows.

The article mentions Owens Lake in CA. Not nearly as well-known but much more substantial is the massive lake in southern CA that dried up completely and is now only vague memories, Tulare Lake.

> ... Tulare Lake was the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River and the second-largest freshwater lake entirely in the United States (as parts of the Great Lakes belong to Canada), based upon surface area. A remnant of Pleistocene-era Lake Corcoran, Tulare Lake dried up after its tributary rivers were diverted for agricultural irrigation and municipal water uses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake

If you've driven Interstate 5 north of Tejon Pass/Grapevine, that valley you pass through is the site of the massive former lake.

Climate change isn't even needed, just an insatiable demand for land and water.

"The Great Salt Lake is typically bigger than the states of Delaware and Rhode Island, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The size changes, however, as water levels rise and fall. The lake is only 14 feet (4 meters) deep on average so a foot of water loss can make a big difference in its total size."

https://www.livescience.com/56941-great-salt-lake.html

The lake's been disappearing for a long time ... it's what's left of pro-glacial Lake Bonneville. At one time it had an area of ~ 50K km^2. A lot of the salt became concentrated as that lake (with no outlet) slowly evaporated. (It left the Bonneville Salt Flats behind, once famous for landspeed record-making.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bonneville

https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncer_abstracts/index.cfm/fuseaction/di...

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