Deserts are growing: reports from Asia and Europe

Two recent reports have shown increasing desertification in both Europe and Central Asia.  These are:

https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/stretching-sands-desertification-spreads-europe

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01667-2

Global distribution of desert areas according to their aridity

(from researchgate.net)

Globally and Europe:

The Horizon link copied above:

The scale of the issue is sometimes under-appreciated, but drylands cover over 41% of the Earth’s terrestrial land surface. They are now home to over 38% of the world’s population. The UN sponsored the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought on 17 June 2022 to highlight the issue.

Droughts lead to the loss of arable land through desertification, the death of vegetation and a scarcity of drinking water.

Europe is not immune to the intensifying aridity, quite apart from heatwaves. Water stress and aridity affect 168 000 square kilometres in Italy and 365 000 square kilometres in Spain, according to data compiled by the Joint Research Centre (JRC). (See box below).

Scientists in the DRY-2-DRY project, using climate models, satellite data and meteorological measurements, are researching the capacity of drought and heatwaves to intensify and propagate by themselves.

‘This is a process that hasn’t been studied before,’ said Prof Diego Miralles, Professor of Hydrology and Climate at Ghent University, Belgium.

By understanding it better, we can get better forecasts of how droughts may evolve and set early warnings for adaptation early enough,’ he said.

‘This balance of moisture has been changing due to global warming. While precipitation is changing differently in different regions, evaporation is mostly increasing due to the increase in temperature. Therefore, there is a tendency for most regions in the world to become increasingly arid,’ said Miralles.

‘This is known to happen locally,’ said Miralles, ‘But we are looking at how the wind moving that mass of dry air to another location can trigger a new drought. It becomes a bit like a wildfire.’

The impact of rising global temperatures means, not only are there heat waves and more droughts but they tend to occur at the same time.

Prof Fernando Maestre, professor of Ecology at the University of Alicante, began his research in Spain in 2005. The project BIODESERT carried out the first global field survey to evaluate how changes in climate and land use, such as grazing pressure, affect drylands ecosystems.

In order to survey such a vast phenomenon, collaborative work is key. The BIODESERT project is now global and includes scientists and ecosystems from 21 countries on all continents, with the exception of Antarctica.

“Until a few years ago, nobody could imagine the important role of biodiversity in global drylands.”

With the shifting sands of time, the problem of land degradation in arid areas and drylands has spread since the first UN Plan of Action to Combat Desertification was adopted in 1977. There are serious threats to food security, biodiversity and the world economy as more and more territory succumbs to desertification.

The researchers observed that plant and microbial diversity plays a key role in maintaining the capacity of drylands to provide essential ecosystem services linked to soil fertility and the production of plant biomass. These ecosystem services are fundamental for supporting the livelihood of more than one billion people globally.

They also reported that increases in aridity promote abrupt changes on the structure and functioning of drylands. This culminates with a shift to low-cover (sparse vegetation) ecosystems that are nutrient- and species-poor at high aridity values.

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Climate change is turning more of Central Asia into desert

The rapid expansion of deserts will have significant impacts on ecosystems and the people and animals who rely on them.

As global temperatures rise, desert climates have spread north by up to 100 kilometres in parts of Central Asia since the 1980s, a climate assessment reveals¹.

The study, published on 27 May in Geophysical Research Letters, also found that over the past 35 years, temperatures have increased across all of Central Asia, which includes parts of China, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In the same period, mountain regions have become hotter and wetter — which might have accelerated the retreat of some major glaciers.

Such changes threaten ecosystems and those who rely on them, says Jeffrey Dukes, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, California. The findings are a “great first step” towards informing mitigation and adaptation policies, he says.

Hu and climate scientist Zihang Han at Lanzhou University in China used air temperature and precipitation data from 1960 to 2020 to divide Central Asia into 11 climate types.

They found that since the late 1980s, the area classed as having a desert climate has expanded eastwards, and has spread north by as much as 100 kilometres in northern Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, in southern Kazakhstan and around the Junggar Basin in northwestern China. Hu says this is a substantial expansion and has had a domino effect on adjacent climate zones, which have also become drier. In some areas, the annual average temperature was at least 5 °C higher between 1990 and 2020 than it was between 1960 and 1979, with summers becoming drier and rainfall occurring mostly during winter.

Over time, increasing temperatures and decreasing rainfall will see plant communities becoming dominated by species that are adapted to hotter and drier conditions, says Dukes. “That’s going to have consequences for things like the grazing animals that are dependent on the steppe or the grasslands,” he says. In some regions, he adds, extended periods of drought will reduce the land’s productivity until it becomes ‘dead’ soil.

Warmer and wetter

The team found a different situation in mountain regions. In the Tian Shan range of northwestern China, rising temperatures have been accompanied by an increase in the amount of precipitation that falls as rain rather than snow. Higher temperatures and increased rainfall contribute to melting ice at high elevations, which might explain the unprecedented shrinking rate of glaciers in this range, Hu says.

With a reduction in snowfall, glaciers in Central Asia will not replenish lost ice, meaning that less meltwater will flow to people and crops in the future, says Troy Sternberg, a geographer at the University of Oxford, UK.

Desertification is an issue in Central Asia and other parts of the world, says Mickey Glantz, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder. But to conclude definitively that deserts are expanding, researchers should look at indicators such as dust storms and heatwaves, rather than relying solely on climate classification.

Human activities such as mining and agriculture also contribute to desertification, Sternberg notes. So governments in Central Asia should focus on sustainable farming and urbanization, he says. “Central Asia, like the rest of the world, should pay attention to the changing climate and try to be more adaptable to it.”

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Heat waves in UK and US – effects of global warming? What about India? The Middle East? Pakistan? Iran? Portugal? Africa?

June has been really hot here in the UK and there are reports that the USA is experiencing similar high temperatures. In July and August in Europe, temperatures have risen into the 40s, with a heatwave named ‘Lucifer’, and reports that snow is melting in the Italian alps and increased deaths due to heat stroke.

 

USA: A report from USA Today has said that due to the heat, American Airlines have had to cancel several flights from Phoenix, as follows:

“The extreme heat forecast for Phoenix on Tuesday has caused the cancellation of 20 American Airlines flights out of Sky Harbor International Airport. 

According to a statement from American Airlines, the American Eagle regional flights use the Bombardier CRJ aircraft, which has a maximum operating temperature of 118 degrees. Tuesday’s forecast for Phoenix included a high of 120 degrees, and the flights that are affected were to take off between 3 and 6 p.m. MT.

Customers affected were told to contact American Airlines for rebooking options or to request a refund.

Extreme heat affects a plane’s ability to take off. Hot air is less dense than cold air, and the hotter the temperature, the more speed a plane needs to lift off. A runway might not be long enough to allow a plane to achieve the necessary extra speed. “

Are we to experience more and more of these excessive temperature events? After all, every one of the last three years has been the hottest on record. Will this be enough to change Donald Trump’s mind about the Paris Agreement?

Another report in the Huffington Post on 14th February 2018, cites a study from Princeton University, which predicts that, by 2100 most cities are set to become unbearably warm. Thanks to a combination of impenetrable, concrete surfaces and lack of moisture in the surrounding areas these cities will become hot spots during a heat wave.  By 2050, it is predicted that 70% of the world’s population could be living in cities.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/by-2100-cities-are-going-to-become-unbearably-warm_uk_5a841b3be4b02b66c513b133?ncid=webmail

In the UK, 2017 was the hottest June since 1976.  I can remember the heat in that year – but somehow it felt like a dryer heat then. Still uncomfortable if you were out in the sun but not quite as sticky and debilitating as this June has been.

And whilst we are feeling the effects here in a temperate country, let us not forget those hotter countries where they are experiencing even higher temperatures than normal. And the devastating forest fires in Portugal, France, the USA and Australia.

IRAN

Iran, having the highest ever recorded temperature in June 2017, with Pakistan not far behind, both well into the 50s Celsius.

Ahvaz in Iran, which reached the highest ever recorded temperature on 29th June 2017, a staggering 129.2 degrees Fahrenheit

Heat waves are more easily attributable to climate change, according to scientists, because there is a clear connection between carbon absorbed in the atmosphere and temperature rises. Such extreme heat put the residents of Ahvaz in serious danger for dehydration, heat fatigue, heat cramps, heat stroke, and other illnesses. For the elderly, these risks are amplified.

Parts of Iran have also struggled with extreme droughts in recent years, which is threatening the country’s water sources and harming agriculture. Lake Urmia, for instance, once the sixth-largest saline lake in the world, has lost 90% of its water since 1970.  Taken together, Iran is experiencing climate change more intensely than many other countries in the world.

India

My book finishes with a quote from Devinder Sharma from India. Here is part of what he wrote in 2016 (and 2017 has been even worse):

“It has now become even more obvious than before that the world we are living in has
changed profoundly in the last five years. Every passing year is turning out to be hotter
than the previous. It is just the middle of April but vast tracts of India are reeling under
scorching heat with temperatures zipping past the 40 degrees mark. In 13 States, April
temperature is higher by 8 degrees from the average. This will only intensify, as the
season warms up.  India is on the boil, literally………….

“We are now in mid-April and I can already feel the average temperatures creeping up. While we can survive, my thoughts go out to the 700 million people reeling under two consecutive years of drought. With wells almost dry and walking on a parched land they will now have to confront an unkindly hot sun. Some reports say wells have dried to a level in Marathwada not seen in past 100 years. Another report tells us that 133 rivers have dried in Jharkhand. To make matters worse, a BBC report indicated that the government might pipe Himalayan water and carry it all the way to the parched lands. After all, this is the surest way to add to GDP!

The relatively well-off in the cities, towns and suburbs have the facility to switch on an air conditioner or an air-cooler but imagine the plight of majority population who have no
other option but to survive under shade, be it at home or under the tree.
Water bodies have dried up. Many studies point to a steep fall in water levels in major
reservoirs to the levels that are lowest in a decade.”

Sharma also reports that, in the previous year (2015), there were 1,500 deaths from the effects of heat wave in Andhra Pradesh alone.

Pakistan has also felt the effects of extreme heat.  The photograph below shows people in Lahore cooling off in a water channel.

AFRICA

And in Africa, there are more famines and drought and more starving children.  Also, from the following website:

https://newrepublic.com/article/143019/one-meal-day-lake-chad-vanishes-seven-million-people-starvation

came this report:

“Not so long ago, Lake Chad was one of the largest bodies of water in Africa. The thick reeds and vital wetlands around its basin provided vast freshwater reserves, breeding grounds for fish, fertile soil for agriculture, and grasslands where farmers grazed their animals. In 1963, it spanned almost 10,000 square miles, an expanse roughly the size of Maryland. But as climate change has taken its toll, the lake has shrunk by 90 percent. Today, only 965 square miles remain. Wetlands have given way to sand dunes. Farmers have abandoned their fields. Those who still live by the lake struggle to survive, beset by chronic drought and the slow onset of ecological catastrophe.”

Update August 17th 2017

Now today, I have received a report to say that July 2017 has been equal first in being the hottest global temperature since records began.  And yes, it is equal with July 2016!  July is traditionally the hottest month of the year globally and the last two Julys have been the hottest ever.

The researchers from England, France, Switzerland, and the U.S., found that climate change made the intensity and frequency of the extreme heat at least twice as likely to occur in Belgium, at least four times as likely in France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and central England, and at least 10 times as likely as Portugal and Spain.

The unusual heat was not limited to Europe, either.

On July 21, Shanghai, China, which is the most populated city in the world with 24 million residents, set a record for its hottest day since record-keeping began there in 1872. The high temperature on that day was 105.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40.9 degrees Celsius, and it fits with a pattern of hotter weather in that city.

The planet has not had a cooler than average month since December of 1984.

The graph below shows seasonal temperatures from 1884 to 2017.

Can we continue to ignore these facts and behave as if nothing is happening?

I believe that we are seeing the beginnings of climate change effects that can only get worse if nothing is done to reverse the trend.

Climate Change in Europe accelerates at a faster pace than elsewhere

An article by Arthur Neslen in The Guardian on 17th January 2017 states that new, peer reviewed, studies have shown that the Northern Hemisphere, especially Europe is feeling greater effects of climate change than the global average.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/25/europe-faces-droughts-floods-storms-climate-change-accelerates

Droughts, flood and storms are occurring more frequently and Europe’s Atlantic-facing countries will suffer heavier rainfalls, greater flood risk, more severe storm damage and an increase in “multiple climatic hazards”.

Temperatures in mountain ranges such as the Alps and the Pyrenees are predicted to soar to glacier-melting levels, while the Mediterranean faces a “drastic” increase in heat extremes, droughts, crop failure and forest fires.  Sea level rise is accelerating, largely due to increased disintegration of ice sheets, and new evidence shows that heavy precipitation has increased in Europe, causing more flooding.

Some species are already adapting their life cycles, due to the early arrival of Spring but the report states that climate change is occurring too rapidly for most species to cope – and more extinctions are expected.

Europe’s thermal growing season is now 10 days longer than in 1992 and some countries around the Mediterranean Sea may have to start growing their crops in Winter.