A recent study published in Environmental Research Letters by a team of researchers from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) at the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) finds that the rainy season of northern Central Asia, which occurs in May-July in present-day, will shift to March-May at the end of the 21st century.
Central Asia is the geographic core region of the Silk Road Economic Belt, characterizing by scarce precipitation and high evaporation. Mismatching the deficiency of water resources, Central Asian economies still rely on primary industries, including agriculture. People’s livelihoods and the fragile ecosystem are highly sensitive to the changes in local precipitation.
"This region is one of the hot spots of global warming, where a stronger than global mean warming trend is projected in the coming century. But the future precipitation changes are less clear," said JIANG Jie from IAP, the paper's first author. "Besides the amount of precipitation, the changes in the phase of precipitation also have important effects especially for agriculture and need a scientific answer."
To give a comprehensive picture of the future changes in precipitation over Central Asia, the researchers adopted the multimodel simulations and projections of 15 models from the new phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). They also use projections under four combined scenarios of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways and the Representative Concentration Pathways (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5). These scenarios reflect a set of alternative futures of social development and greenhouse gas emission.
Read more at Institute Of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy Of Sciences
Image: Pamirs Plateau over Kyrgyzstan (73°47′，39°40′) (Image by CHEN Feng)