Goddamn global warming!
My snark/humor detector is not warmed up yet this morning, so…
You do know that this is a thing that rivers do when they flow across relatively level ground?
Not saying that anthropogenic climate change wouldn’t influence it somehow, but rivers have been doing exactly this for literally as long as rivers have existed on this planet.
While I am uncertain as to the degree to which global warming may accelerate processes like this, rivers drift all the time. Taming these forces has been a struggle throughout human history (c.f. Yu the Great, circa 2200 BC).
It was supposed to be a joke, but thank you both for being kind about it.
Nothing new: I saw a film on this in college (30 years ago) about the Mississippi. The only reason the Mississippi stays the same is a lot of money spent by the Army Corps of Engineers every year to force it into its current location.
John McPhee’s The Control of Nature has a wonderful and fascinating section on this subject.
Very interesting book!
McPhee is a rockstar.
Since 1994 I’ve spent time on the Yarapa River. In low water times we hiked through a mile or so of jungle and emerged on the bank of the Ucayali. In high water season we boated over the same trail which was about 20 feet under water. The wild beauty of that place is incredible complete with pink river dolphins. My two youngest sons lived along the Yarapa river in their early years of life. Houses built in this area are on stilts usually about 8 to 10 feet above ground and on the highest ground available. We worked out of a school house that we climbed up into in low water season or tied our dugouts to in the high water times.
Oh man this kinda thing is real PITA if the river in question is supposed to be a border between to countries. The drift of Danube over last few decades created the whole kerfuffle that made Liberland possible. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland
From now on, all of this global climate stuff will be referred to simply as -
CHANGE.
Until the beginning of the Anthropocene, that is.
Indeed!
We learned from the beavers, then took it to a whole 'nother level!
Wow, that’s only 30 years or so. Pretty amazing. I knew this happens but didn’t realize how quickly.
Harold Fisk did a series of images of the Mississippi that capture this without the animation. All done for the USGS, I think, so all free to download and print.
http://www.visualnews.com/2011/09/24/vintage-maps-trace-the-meandering-mississippi/
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