Colorado River Basin has lost 10 trillion gallons due to warming temps, enough water to fill Lake Mead, study shows

Researchers at UCLA found the human-caused climate crisis is contributing significantly to the decline of the Colorado River, which runs through seven Western states and provides drinking and irrigation water for around 40 million people. Higher temperatures in the West have resulted in about a 10% decrease in the river’s flow in the last two decades, according to the study, which was published in the American Geophysical Union’s Water Resources Research.