Page 7 - AsiaElec Week 25 2022

AsiaElec CLIMATE CHANGE AsiaElec

Desert climates in parts of

Central Asia have spread up to

100 km since 1980s

CHINA DESERT climates in parts of Central Asia have Kyrgyzstan, southern Kazakhstan, and the Jun-
spread by up to 100 kilometres since the 1980s ggar Basin in northwestern China has expanded
as global temperatures have risen, according to eastwards and northwards by as much as 100
a climate study as cited by Nature World News. kilometres.
The study, published lately by Geophysical Hu was reported as saying that the significant
Research Letters, also outlines how tempera- expansion has had a cascading effect on prox-
tures have risen in Central Asia over the past imate climate zones, which have also become
four decades, including in parts of China, drier. From 1990 to 2020, the annual average
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Mountain regions temperature in some areas was recorded as
have become hotter and wetter. That’s possibly at least 5 degrees Celsius higher than it was
accelerated the retreat of some major glaciers. between 1960 and 1979. Summers became drier
The study’s findings were described as a “great and most rainfall fell in the winter.
first step” towards informing mitigation and Mickey Glantz, a climate scientist at the
adaptation policies, by Jeffrey Dukes, an ecol- University of Colorado Boulder, was reported
ogist at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s as saying that rather than relying solely on cli-
Department of Global Ecology in Stanford. mate classification, researchers should look at
More than 60% of Central Asia has a dry cli- indicators such as dust storms and heatwaves to
mate with little rainfall. The region is thus vul- conclude definitively that deserts are expanding.
nerable to rising temperatures, which increase Another dilemma is that with snowfall reduc-
soil evaporation and risk of drought. tion, Central Asia glaciers will not replenish lost
Study co-author Qi Hu, an Earth and cli- ice, meaning less meltwater will flow to people
mate scientist from the University of Nebraska, and crops, according to Troy Sternberg, a geog-
Lincoln, and climate scientist Zihang Han of rapher at University of Oxford. Human activities
Lanzhou University in China, divided Central such as mining and agriculture also contribute
Asia into 11 climate types using air tempera- to desertification. Governments in Central Asia
ture and precipitation data from 1960 to 2020. should therefore focus on sustainable farming
They discovered that since the late 1980s, the and urbanisation, he said.™
desert climate zone in northern Uzbekistan and

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