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From The Guardian - Climate Change
From his office perched on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, Steven Paton looks over the entrance to the Panama Canal; the high rises of the country’s capital resting upon the horizon behind him, and an increasingly long queue of tankers lining up in the bay.
For 33 years his job with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute monitoring the region’s climate has given him a front-row seat to how the weather’s familiar patterns have changed, upending axioms of old and calling into question the future viability of one of the most important trade routes in the world.
In normal times, the Panama Canal has capacity to handle 36 ships a day. But as water has grown scarcer, the canal authority has reduced that number to 22. By February, it will be just 18.
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Read the full post at The Guardian - Climate Change.
