“At 27,000 square miles, the size of Ireland, Lake Victoria is the greatest of Africa’s Great Lakes — the biggest freshwater body after Lake Superior. And it has dropped fast, at least six feet in the past three years, and by as much as a half-inch a day this year before November rains stabilized things.
“The outflow through two hydroelectric dams at Jinja [on the shores of Lake Victoria] is part of the problem… half the problem, say environmentalists. But much of what is happening to Victoria and other lakes across the heart of Africa is attributable to years of drought and rising temperatures, conditions that starve the lakes of inflowing water and evaporate more of the water they have.
“In a yet unpublished report obtained by The Associated Press, an international consulting firm advises the Ugandan government that supercomputer models of global-warming scenarios for Lake Victoria ‘raise alarming concerns’ about its future and that of the Nile River, which begins its 4,100-mile northward journey here at Jinja.
“The report, by U.S.-based Water Resources and Energy Management International, says rising temperatures may evaporate up to half the lake’s normal inflow from rainfall and rivers, with ‘severe consequences for the lake and its ability to meet the region’s water resources needs.’
“A further dramatic drop in Victoria’s water levels might even turn off this spigot for the Nile, a lifeline for more than 100 million Egyptians, Sudanese and others.
” ‘People talk about the snows of Kilimanjaro [discussed in some detail in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth],’ said Aris P. Georgakakos, the study’s chief author, speaking of that African mountain’s melting glaciers. ‘We have something much bigger to worry about, and that’s Lake Victoria.'(From a report by Charles J. Hanley, AP, December 9, 2006).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One