“The continents are drying, freshwater availability is shrinking, and sea level rise is accelerating… Combined, they send perhaps the direst message on the impact of climate change to date.” (Unprecedented Continental Drying study, see below)
Human-generated climate change, the result of enormous quantities of CO2 spewing into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels (in 2024, the CO2 annual rate set a new all-time record of 3.75 ppm or an 18,600% increase over natural variability of 0.02 ppm per annum, according to paleoclimate pre-industrial data) causing widespread interconnectivity merging of dry regions of the planet. This is a new feature of global warming.
“Our entire infrastructure and civilization are based around a climate that no longer exists.” (John Marsham, professor Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds)
Dry areas of the planet are merging into massive mega-dry behemoth regions reflective of how far advanced climate change has progressed, with global warming turning hotter, and hotter, especially 2023-24 when global mean temperature increased by 0.3°C or 10-fold in one year, ushering in a full year of 1.5°C above pre-industrial. According to Johan Rockström of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact, this kind of big increase in only one year has never happened before. Scientists are still bewildered.
Recent studies show mega-drying mergers advancing at alarming rates. Huge swaths of the planet are starting to resemble the science fiction world of Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) with its desert ecosystem and water scarcity central to the plot, as actual climate change in today’s world adopts a science fiction veneer.
“We use NASA GRACE/GRACE-FO data to show that the continents have undergone unprecedented TWS (terrestrial water storage) loss since 2002. Drying areas of the planet increased by twice the size of California annually, creating ‘mega-drying regions’ across the Northern Hemisphere.” (Famiglietti, et al, Unprecedented Continental Drying, Shrinking Freshwater Availability, and Increasing Land Contributions to Sea Level Rise, Science Advances, July 25, 2025)
Multi-dimensional factors are found within mega-dryness: “Since 2002, 75% of the population lives in 101 countries that have been losing freshwater. Furthermore, the continents now contribute more freshwater to sea level rise than the ice sheets, and drying regions now contribute more than land glaciers and ice caps. Urgent action is required to prepare for the major impacts of results presented,” Ibid.
Alarmingly, four continental-scale mega-drying super-regions have formed a new feature for the planet. These super regions are all in the Northern Hemisphere (1) northern Canada (2) northern Russia (3) a contiguous region inclusive of southwestern North America and Central America (4) the massive, tri-continental region spanning from North Africa to Europe, through the Middle East and Central Asia, to northern China and South and Southeast Asia, which owes its expansion to the recent European drought.
In short, like The Blob (1958) of film fame, mega-dryness is spreading across the Northern Hemisphere. The consequences are only too obviously a fundamental shift in the foundations of civilization. Thousands of years of foundational development are now at risk from a measly couple of hundred years of burning fossil fuels.
Areas of the planet “getting wetter” and experiencing “wet extremes,” are another new feature but decreasing in size (area) while increasing intensity. This decrease in area, or size, of wetness but increase in intensity paradoxically serves to complement dryness leading to extreme mega-dry regions with serious vulnerability to wildfires. For example, the years 2023 and 2024 were record-setting for forest fires, burning more than double the annual average of the previous two decades. Last year was the first time that major fires raged across both tropical and boreal forests (NASA and World Resources Institute).
“The implications of continental drying for freshwater availability are potentially staggering. Nearly 6 billion people, roughly 75% of the world’s population, live in the 101 countries that have been losing freshwater over the past 22 years,” Ibid.
Scientists say this challenges world leaders to take immediate steps to curb fossil fuel burning emissions at any and all costs. After all, it’s burning up the planet.
“The expansion of continental drying, the increase in extreme drying, and the implications for shrinking freshwater availability and sea level rise should be of paramount concern to the general public, to resource managers, and to decision-makers around the world. The robustness of the trends reported here, along with a critical shift in the behavior of TWS and continental drying following the major El Niño beginning in 2014, may well mean that reversing these trends is unlikely. Combined, they send perhaps the direst message on the impact of climate change to date. The continents are drying, freshwater availability is shrinking, and sea level rise is accelerating,” Ibid.
According to another journal, Science/Alert d/d August 18, 2025: Earth’s Continents Are Drying Out at an Unprecedented Rate: “This means terrestrial water is, on the whole, diminishing with devastating effects worldwide. That includes freshwater sources on the surface, like lakes and rivers, and also groundwater stored in aquifers deep below Earth’s surface. The majority of the human population, 75% of us, live in the 101 countries where fresh water is being lost at increasing rates.”
A significant part of this issue is where the water goes… mostly into the ocean, and it exceeds meltwater from the world’s ice sheets. In continents without glaciers, 68% of loss of terrestrial water is attributed to human groundwater depletion. Extreme droughts in Central America and Europe have contributed considerably. Scientists believe these events will become more frequent and more severe with the ongoing climate crisis.
According to another science journal, LiveScience, December 2024: ‘An Existential Threat Affecting Billions’: Three-quarters of Earth’s Land Became Permanently Drier in Last 3 Decades: Drylands now cover 40.6% of the land on Earth. According to the study, aridity is now impacting 40% of the world’s agricultural land with intensified wildfires, and agricultural collapse in areas hard hit, including a lot of Europe, the western US, Brazil, eastern Asia, and central Africa.
Scientists say fossil fuel CO2 emissions must be reduced as quickly as possible to zero to halt the continent-wide creeping devastation of the dryness peril, as well as adopting much better uses of land and water resources.
The merging of drying regions into mega-dry super regions has been largely unrecognized by society on a local level and may be the least recognized yet most damaging impact of climate change on a global scale. Scientists believe it demands the earliest attention via (1) governmental science agencies (2) mitigation policies (3) academic advice for major developed nations that most directly impact global warming, especially the US, China, Russia, India, and the EU, which are the top CO2 emitters.
The leadership of science has never been more essential than it is today.
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