El Niño may be drying out the southern hemisphere – here's how that affects the whole planet

By Kevin Collins, Senior Lecturer, Environment & Systems, The Open University

It is a well-known fact that water is the key to life on Earth. But it is less well known that only about 1% of all water on the planet is fresh water available to humans, plants or land-based animals.

The rest is in the oceans, or locked up in polar ice sheets and rocks. In a climate changing world, the global distribution of that 1% takes on a whole new significance.

A new study has shown that the southern hemisphere has been drying out more than the northern hemisphere over the past two…

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