Chinese researchers reveal causes of agricultural drought
Chinese researchers have found that anthropogenic external forcing and the natural internal variability of the climate system together have led to aggravated drought s across southern Central Asia in its early growing season over the past three decades. The study was published recently in the journal Nature Geoscience. "Agricultural drought refers to soil moisture deficits, which is closely related to meteorological factor changes and usually happens after meteorological drought ," said Jiang Jie, first author of the study, a research er at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Science s. "The anthropogenic external forcing mainly refers to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in this research," Jiang added. The continued emission of greenhouse gases has resulted in rapid warming across Central Asia, which has further led to increased evapotranspiration and reduced soil moisture in this region. Jiang explained that the ...