Subsidence caused by groundwater pumping in the Central Valley has been a problem for decades. Over the last few years, interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) has been used from satellites and aircraft to produce maps of subsidence with sensitivity of fractions of an inch.
Earth has done an ecological about-face: Global plant productivity that once flourished under warming temperatures and a lengthened growing season is now on the decline, struck by the stress of drought.
2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a new NASA analysis of global surface temperature shows. The analysis, conducted by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, also shows that in the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year since modern records began in 1880.
This latest study based on NASA satellite data says that groundwater levels in northern India have been declining by as much as one foot per year over the past decade and the loss is almost entirely due to human activity. Shows that more than 26 cubic miles of groundwater disappeared from aquifers in areas of Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Delhi, between 2002 and 2008.
