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I was very surprised that the ocean was shrinking.

I like your pictures.
I liked your background.

I learned that cotton is called white gold.

I am still curious about why people polluted the water?

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(Mrs. J- this is a link to my video)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2774275/Watch-one-world-s-biggest-seas-disappear-Nasa-releases-Aral-Sea-images-showing-drying-up.html#v-3813069597001

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The Aral Sea is located Central Asia and part of two countries; Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Before 1960 The Aral Sea was drinkable and was freshwater that could be used for crops. But today there are two parts, the larger part in the South, is a salty sea. The smaller part, in the North is less salty.

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Irrigated land is a big problem globally, but there are an abundance number of ways to fix this terrible situation. The fist cause of it is population density and climate, the hotter temperature and the more people means more water. Farmers rely on irrigation to grow large amounts of cotton, fruits and veggies.

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As one Moynaq resident said, “If every scientist and journalist who visited the Aral Sea brought with them a bucket of water, the sea would be filled again.”
(teachtci.com)

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Watch one of the world's biggest seas disappear: Nasa releases series of Aral Sea satellite images showing it drying up

Images show the giant lake from 2000 until 2014 - where it dries up completely for the first time

was once the world's fourth biggest sea

Vast lake was in the middle of the Kyzylkum Desert.

It was once the world's fourth biggest sea, a vast lake in the middle of the Kyzylkum Desert.

However, a massive water diversion project begun by the Soviet Union in the 1960s has caused it to shrink dramatically - and this year, to dry up completely for the first time.

This series of images from Nasa's Terra satellite reveals the shocking change.

Scroll down for video

WHAT HAPPENED TO IT?

In the 1960s, the Soviet Union undertook a major water diversion project on the arid plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.

The region's two major rivers, fed by snowmelt and precipitation in faraway mountains, were used to transform the desert into farms for cotton and other crops.

Before the project, the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya rivers flowed down from the mountains, cut northwest through the Kyzylkum Desert, and finally pooled together in the lowest part of the basin.

The lake they made, the Aral Sea, was once the fourth largest in the world.

Although irrigation made the desert bloom, it devastated the Aral Sea.

This series of images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite documents the changes.

At the start of the series in 2000, the lake was already a fraction of its 1960 extent (black line).

The Northern Aral Sea (sometimes called the Small Aral Sea) had separated from the Southern (Large) Aral Sea.

The Southern Aral Sea had split into eastern and western lobes that remained tenuously connected at both ends.

By 2001, the southern connection had been severed, and the shallower eastern part retreated rapidly over the next several years.

Especially large retreats in the eastern lobe of the Southern Sea appear to have occurred between 2005 and 2009, when drought limited and then cut off the flow of the Amu Darya.

Water levels then fluctuated annually between 2009 and 2014 in alternately dry and wet years.

Dry conditions in 2014 caused the Southern Sea's eastern lobe to completely dry up for the first time in modern times.

As the lake dried up, fisheries and the communities that depended on them collapsed.

The increasingly salty water became polluted with fertilizer and pesticides.

The blowing dust from the exposed lakebed, contaminated with agricultural chemicals, became a public health hazard.

According to NASA, the loss of the water's moderating influence has also led to more extreme temperatures in the region, making winters colder and summers hotter and drier.

THE ARAL SEA

The salty dust blew off the lakebed and settled onto fields, degrading the soil. Croplands had to be flushed with larger and larger volumes of river water.

The loss of the moderating influence of such a large body of water made winters colder and summers hotter and drier.

In a last-ditch effort to save some of the lake, Kazakhstan built a dam between the northern and southern parts of the Aral Sea.

Completed in 2005, the dam was basically a death sentence for the southern Aral Sea, which was judged to be beyond saving.

All of the water flowing into the desert basin from the Syr Darya now stays in the Northern Aral Sea.

Between 2005 and 2006, the water levels in that part of the lake rebounded significantly and very small increases are visible throughout the rest of the time period.

The differences in water color are due to changes in sediment.

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Satellite images show the Aral Sea drying up

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Images show the giant lake from 2000 until 2014 - where it dries up completely for the first time was once the world's fourth biggest sea Vast lake was in the middle of the Kyzylkum Desert. It was once the world's fourth biggest sea, a vast lake in the middle of the Kyzylkum Desert.

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Just as Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States until people began fleeing it, these days, the Aral Sea-what was once the fourth-largest lake in the world-is a pale, arid imitation of its former self.

As the American West faces a tremendous drought, it's also an environmental disaster horror story about how not to manage water.

According to NASA, the salt-water lake on the border of Kazakhstan and the autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan in Uzbekistan just passed a dubious landmark: For "the first time in modern history, the eastern basin of the South Aral Sea has completely dried."

While glacier shrinkage on nearby mountains has the potential to exacerbate the problem in the future, the drying of the Aral Sea is the result of mismanaged resources. For now, it's also a cautionary tale of what happens when the water runs out.

In the 1960s, the Soviet Union diverted two major rivers that feed the Aral Sea to boost cotton and rice production on the arid plains. Nearby cotton production grew, as did the population in the lake basin. The only thing that shrank was the Aral Sea itself.

Receiving 10 times less water than it used to, the lake's size and volume shrank, which raised the salt concentration in the remaining water. By 1969, the average salinity rose to 10 grams per liter; by 1989, it was up to 30 grams per liter, spelling the end of the once thriving fishing industry.

By the end of the 1980s, the Aral had become two different lakes and a man-made desert-the North Aral Sea, the South Aral Sea, and the growing Aral-kum. A series of dams were constructed to preserve some of the North Aral Sea, but at the expense of the South Aral, which split into east and west lobes, and continued to cede territory to the Aral-kum. This summer yet another unfortunate milestone was passed.

"This is the first time the eastern basin has completely dried in modern times," Philip Micklin, geographer emeritus from Western Michigan University and Aral Sea expert, told NASA. "And it is likely the first time it has completely dried in 600 years, since Medieval desiccation associated with diversion of Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea."

In addition to the end of the fishing industry, the shrinking lake left behind highly-salted sand comprising up the 60,000 square kilometer desert. According to a UN report, each year, high winds kick up 15 million to 75 million tons of sand and dust each year that have been contaminated by fertilizer and pesticides.

Nearby drinking water was compromised, health problems arose nearby, and a vicious cycle commenced. "The blowing dust from the exposed lakebed, contaminated with agricultural chemicals, became a public health hazard. The salty dust blew off the lakebed and settled onto fields, degrading the soil. Croplands had to be flushed with larger and larger volumes of river water."

From one standpoint, the death of the Aral Sea was for a good cause; Uzbekistan is now one of the top cotton producers in the world. Last year, the country harvested just over 3.35 million tonnes of cotton to become the world's fifth-largest cotton exporter, with US $1 billion annually in exports. For the local communities, the biodiversity in the area, and other economies in the region, the cause isn't so good, which is why people of authority no less notable than Ban-Ki Moon call it "one of the worst disasters, environmental disasters of the world."

While the Aral's demise isn't traced directly to climate change, as water resources become more scare, it could be a pattern that becomes more familiar in time, like the sight of fishing boats in the middle of a growing desert.

As drought-stricken Californians face fines for watering their lawns, it helps to have a reminder that there are worse things in the world than brown grass.

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Ninety Percent of the World's Fourth-Largest Lake Has Gone Dry

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Just as Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States until people began fleeing it, these days, the Aral Sea-what was once the fourth-largest lake in the world-is a pale, arid imitation of its former self. As the American West faces a tremendous drought, it's also an environmental disaster horror story about how not to manage water.

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Sea life declines by strong dust storms at the bottom of the Aral Sea. The water was very useful tool to many people before 1960. But after that year the water was polluted by salt, sewage and toxic chemicals and unable to use for everyday life.  Health problems from the water are harming many people, causing tuberculosis and lung cancer. Pregnant women were getting a disease called anemia. This causes the babies to become ill before they are even born and not live until their first birthday.

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About 95 million pounds of fish were harvested at the Aral Sea each year

Moynaq produced 20 million an of seafood each year and leaving the industry supporting 35,000 workers

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In the year of 2001, a visitor to Moynaq described a chilling sight. Fishing boats were scattered across an abandoned desert and fiberglass, metal, rusty springs and cigarette butts were spread around all over the desert. Until 1980, many of these boats were being used before the sea began to shrink. The industries later became destroyed, today Moynaq is 90 miles from the shore line. Commercial fishing ended in 1982, fishing crews and cannery workers lost their jobs. 40,00 people once lived in Moynaq and now only 3,000 live their.

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Cotton is sometimes called ''white gold'' and it is the main crop and gives farmers a good income in the Soviet Union. The cotton was planted in a desert region in Central Asia. The government provided water to cotton farms by building dams on the Amu and Syr rivers. Now about 90% of the river's water was stored behind the dams and only 10% entered the sea. As the sea was shrinking the weather began to get hotter and winters became colder.

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The Aral Sea is a large lake surrounded by Moynaq, a fishing town in the Soviet Union. In 1960, it had about 40,000 people, they farmed, fished or worked in fish canaries. "All of that has changed. If you visited Moynaq today, you would find it surrounded by dust. Although a 20-foot welcome sign shows a fish and a seagull, you wouldn’t see the Aral Sea anywhere." (teachtci.com)