The Mississippi River is at its lowest point in recorded history.
A critical shipping route is disrupted when barges are stuck on sandbars.
Human remains and a 19th century wreck were found by the low waters.
The shipping and industry crisis in the US has been caused by the low waters of the Mississippi River.
Shipping and tourism can be done through the Mississippi, which runs from northern Minnesota down through the Midwest plains and through Louisiana. All that boat-based commerce depends on the deep waters of the river, which can accommodate large vessels carrying cargo.
Ships are getting stuck at the river bottom because of the low water levels. There are new restrictions on how low ships and barges can be. The price of shipping goods along the river skyrocketed, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, and the US Army Corps of Engineers began emergency Dredging to Deeper the river at more than a dozen key choke points.
Mike Ellis, the CEO of American Commercial Barge Line, told CNBC that this is the most severe he's ever seen.
Ellis said that the impact on the supply chain was significant.
Human remains were found along the new banks of the river after the water retreated so much. People are walking across the riverbed to an island that is normally only accessible by boat.
The river on the Louisiana coast is so low that ocean water from the Gulf of Mexico began to push upstream. CNN reported on Tuesday that the USACE is racing to build a 1,500-foot-wide underwater levee to keep saltwater out of the river. There is a drinking water advisory in effect.
The Mississippi River basin was flooded a few months back. Heavy rains caused flash flooding in Kentucky, St. Louis, Missouri, parts of Illinois and Jackson, Mississippi.
The Midwest is in an abnormal dry spell despite these sporadic rain events. There isn't enough rain to feed the giant river in the Ohio River Valley.
The water in the Mississippi is close to the record low set in 1988. The water in Memphis, Tennessee fell below the record on Monday.
The USACE Mississippi Valley Division spokeswoman told the Journal that there was no rain. The rivers are not standing still.
Climate change can be attributed to any single event conducted by scientists. Climate change is driving more weather variability in the central US and this year's extreme conditions are consistent with that.
Climate change is changing the planet's water cycle by releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Changes in the atmospheric and ocean currents are caused by rising temperatures.
The river is so dry that a centuries-old wreck has been found. The old sunken ship was found by low water levels along the banks of the Mississippi River. The remains are thought to be from a ferry that sank in the 19th or early 20th century.
This is the first time that the ship has been fully exposed. In the 1990s, some parts of the vessel came out of the water.
The very tip tops of the sides were visible as the vessel was full of mud. McGimsey said that they had to move a lot of dirt to get some narrow windows to open.
According to news stories from the State Times archives, McGimsey thinks the ship could be the Brookhill Ferry, which was sunk in a storm in 1915.
A more gruesome discovery was made by the river. A Mississippi woman found human remains while searching for rocks with her family on the banks of the river. The remains included a lower jawbone, rib bones, and some unidentified bone pieces.
Crystal Foster, the woman who found the remains, told WMC that they knew it was only a matter of time before the remains were found.
They are the newest discoveries to surface from the water. Several sets of remains were found in Nevada's Lake Mead, which fell to historically low levels due to climate change-related dry weather.
There are some good news. Shrinking bodies of water could be a boon for experts tasked with solving missing persons cases, according to a forensic anthropologist.
A big body of water is going to help us in the forensic area.
Business Insider has an article on it.
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