Science

Pink water washes over a salt crust along the receding edge of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, May 4, 2021. The lake has been shrinking for years, and its levels are expected to hit a 170-year low in 2021 as drought grips the American West. (AP Photo / Rick Bowmer)

A home destroyed in the 2020 North Complex Fire sits above Lake Oroville in Oroville, Calif., May 23, 2021. The reservoir is shown at 39% of capacity and 46% of its historical average. The mighty lake — a linchpin in a system of aqueducts and reservoirs in the arid U.S. West that makes California possible — is shrinking with surprising speed amid a severe drought, with state officials predicting it will reach a record low later this summer. The lake helps water a quarter of the nation’s crops, sustain endangered salmon and anchor the tourism economy of a Northern California county that must rebuild seemingly every year after unrelenting wildfires.(AP Photo / Noah Berger)