CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE LAST CENTURY AND ITS IMPACT ON WATER CYCLE IN CENTRAL ASIAN ARIDZONE

Abstract

Arid regions are home to more than 40 % of the total global population and are one of the most sensitive areas to climate change and human activities. As the largest arid region over the north hemisphere, Central Asia has experienced the significant increasing rate of the surface tem- perature during the late century, especially during the recent decades (1979-2011). According to the analysis of multiple datasets, no significant contributions from declining irrigation and urbani- zation to temperature change were found. A warming center in the middle of the central Asian states and weakened temperature variability along the northwest–southeast temperature gradient from the northern Kazakhstan to southern Xinjiang. An overall increasing trend of the annual pre- cipitation was found over this region in the last century. Furthermore, the annual precipitation ex- hibited high-frequency variations and low-frequency variations. There exist significant differences of the precipitation between the mountainous areas and plain areas. The research of the ecosystem variations and their responses to the climate change are important and urgent over the arid re- gions. The development of the remote sensing technologies provide a possible approach to address the above problems. Climate change and the ecosystem variations should be explored together to reveal the rules of the climate system and ecosystem as a whole according to the traditional climate methods and the new remote sensing means.