The Rio Grande and Rhine Rivers Are Both Running Dry

Heat waves and wildfires have made their marks on both Europe and North America this summer, but the impacts of climate change are also showing up along the banks of some of the world's most famous rivers -- banks that grow taller as the water dries up to leave beds exposed and cracked in the sun. 

A number of rivers like the Rio Grande, which forms much of the border between the US and Mexico, have run dry seasonally along certain stretches for years now. But lately dry riverbeds have crept ever farther north into New Mexico. Earlier this month, the Rio Grande was more a series of muddy puddles along the section that runs through the heart of Albuquerque. At one point, wildfire broke out along the banks in the city, hopped to an island and then crossed the river before being put out. 

The scope of the trend becomes clearer when viewed from space. 

This month, the European Space Agency's Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite documented the drop of the Rhine, which is Europe's second largest river. A significant reduction in water levels on the important shipping pathway has made it difficult for boats to navigate without risking damage or running aground.

Much of Europe has experienced heat waves and a dearth of rainfall in recent months.  

It's a scenario familiar to many in the American West, where low flows in the Colorado River basin are causing the region's huge lakes and reservoirs to dry up, revealing decades-old shipwrecks and even bodies from cold criminal cases. 

At least three sets of human remains have turned up at Lake Mead alone, which NASA observed filled to just 27% of its capacity a month ago, on July 18. 

Monsoon rains have brought temporary relief to parts of the US Southwest in recent weeks, but against the background of a decades-long megadrought in the region that's the worst in centuries by some measures, it remains just a drop in the bucket, or in the dry lakebed.