Several of my friends have shared this paste (or shares of it) on
Facebook:
This is the current state of the Loire, the longest river in
France. This has not happened before in at least the 2000 years since
literate people inhabited France. The Romans would have written about
this. The medieval Franks would have written about this. To the best
of our historical knowledge, nowhere in the past 2000 years has the
Loire run dry, and likely never long before that. The drought that now
grips southwestern Europe may well be unprecedented in recorded human
history.
This is in the heart of wine country where grapes grow in abundance
and wheat waves like golden seas- but not now. Now the wheat burns and
the grapes whither to raisins on the vine. This is the end of
days. And on Monday morning I’ll return to work and pretend this isn’t
happening. It’s complete madness.
Along with this picture:
But it’s all bunk. While the Loire going dry would be a big deal,
it’s not dry, and this picture isn’t unusual.
The picture is of parallel path of the Loire where its crossed by the
Pont de
Varades bridge. The main flow of the river is just East of this
picture, off to the left:
Translating some tweets from Thibault Laconde, @EnergieDevlpmt
on Twitter:
“It spans a shallow dead arm which is often dry. Here are pictures
from May 2011 and August 2009: …”
“The Montjean station was built in 1842, so we have lots of historical
data. It had lower flows (below 95m3/s) during the drought of 1976
(with a minimum of 73m3/s on the 22 August) but also in 1870, 1905,
1906, 1921, 1947, 1949, 1950, etc.”
“The current flow is low but not unprecedented. It corresponds almost
exactly to the decadal low VCN3. That is to say, at a constant
climate, we expect to reach it over 3 days on average every 10 years.”
There is definitely a drought, and the heatwave
has broken many records, but these water levels are not anywhere close
to a “haven’t seen in 2000 years” event.
The Loire Is Not Dry
Link post
Several of my friends have shared this paste (or shares of it) on Facebook:
Along with this picture:
But it’s all bunk. While the Loire going dry would be a big deal, it’s not dry, and this picture isn’t unusual.
The picture is of parallel path of the Loire where its crossed by the Pont de Varades bridge. The main flow of the river is just East of this picture, off to the left:
Google Maps
Translating some tweets from Thibault Laconde, @EnergieDevlpmt on Twitter:
There is definitely a drought, and the heatwave has broken many records, but these water levels are not anywhere close to a “haven’t seen in 2000 years” event.