Deserts are spreading in Central Asia

More than 60% of Central Asia has a dry climate with infrequent rainfall and as a result of global warming, deserts are spreading. A study has found that, since the 1980s, regions with a desert climate have expanded by as much as 100 kilometres in northern Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, in southern Kazakhstan and around the Junggar Basin in northwestern China. In mountainous areas, previous cold climate is replaced by warmer and also wetter climate. These changes could have largely resulted in the fast retreat of glaciers and the temporary rise of groundwater and the water levels of lakes in the drainage areas in recent decades. Because different climate types are associated with specific flora and fauna, the shifts of the climate types in locations have elevated the potential to initiate new feedbacks of the ecological systems and complicate its variation. Click to read the study published on 27 May 2022 in Geophysical Research Letters.