Does climate change mean China will face more sandstorms?
By Yuan Ye
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More than a quarter of China is desert, and desertification of adjacent areas is a major issue. Sandstorms are common, especially during spring. But the current season stands out for the frequency and strength of the storms, a worrying sign that a warmer future will be dustier, scientists told Sixth Tone.
What caused the recent sandstorms?
Ma Quanlin, deputy director of the Gansu Desert Control Research Institute in China’s northwest, told Sixth Tone that while the sandstorms mainly originated from Mongolia, China’s neighbor to the north, part of the airborne dust also came from the Taklamakan Desert, one of China’s four major dust source regions.
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Climate change due to human activity likely increased the magnitude of recent sandstorms, Wu Liguang, a meteorologist at Fudan University in Shanghai, told Sixth Tone. Mongolia has warmed at three times the global average rate over the past 80 years, Wu said. Making similar observations, researchers warned in a paper published in Science in November that an abrupt shift to warmer and drier weather over inner East Asia is potentially irreversible.
How effective is China’s afforestation campaign?
To combat desertification, governments in China’s drier areas have resorted to mass tree-planting to stabilize sand dunes. As part of the Three-North Shelterbelt Forest Program, one of the largest such initiatives, trees were planted on 30 million hectares of dusty regions by late 2020.
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