Drylands Now Make Up 40% of Land on Earth, Excluding Antarctica, Study Says 71
An area of land nearly a third larger than India has turned from humid conditions to dryland -- arid areas where agriculture is difficult -- in the past three decades, research has found. From a report: Drylands now make up 40% of all land on Earth, excluding Antarctica. Three-quarters of the world's land suffered drier conditions in the past 30 years, which is likely to be permanent, according to the study by the UN Science Policy Interface, a body of scientists convened by the United Nations.
Africa lost about 12% of its GDP owing to the increasing aridity between 1990 and 2015, the report found. Even worse losses are forecast: Africa will lose about 16% of its GDP, and Asia close to 7%, in the next half decade. Ibrahim Thiaw, executive secretary of the UN convention to combat desertification (UNCCD), said: "Unlike droughts -- temporary periods of low rainfall -- aridity represents a permanent, unrelenting transformation. Droughts end. When an area's climate becomes drier, however, the ability to return to previous conditions is lost. The drier climates now affecting vast lands across the globe will not return to how they were, and this change is redefining life on Earth."
Some crops will be particularly at risk: maize yields are projected to halve in Kenya by 2050, if current trends continue. Drylands are areas where 90% of the rainfall is lost to evaporation, leaving only 10% for vegetation. Two-thirds of land globally will store less water by mid-century, according to the report published on Monday.
Africa lost about 12% of its GDP owing to the increasing aridity between 1990 and 2015, the report found. Even worse losses are forecast: Africa will lose about 16% of its GDP, and Asia close to 7%, in the next half decade. Ibrahim Thiaw, executive secretary of the UN convention to combat desertification (UNCCD), said: "Unlike droughts -- temporary periods of low rainfall -- aridity represents a permanent, unrelenting transformation. Droughts end. When an area's climate becomes drier, however, the ability to return to previous conditions is lost. The drier climates now affecting vast lands across the globe will not return to how they were, and this change is redefining life on Earth."
Some crops will be particularly at risk: maize yields are projected to halve in Kenya by 2050, if current trends continue. Drylands are areas where 90% of the rainfall is lost to evaporation, leaving only 10% for vegetation. Two-thirds of land globally will store less water by mid-century, according to the report published on Monday.
Soil lost to erosion is not easy to replace. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Global powers? What you say would far more accurately be applied to African leaders.
Re:Soil lost to erosion is not easy to replace. (Score:4, Interesting)
And Trump. African leaders, and also Trump.
You would not be the first to make that comparison.
Trevor Noah argues Trump is the perfect African president [dailymail.co.uk]
(Comparisons to Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe , ...)
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OK boomer
Re:Soil lost to erosion is not easy to replace. (Score:4, Insightful)
Global powers? What you say would far more accurately be applied to African leaders.
They're the same picture.
Re: Soil lost to erosion is not easy to replace. (Score:2)
African leaders, many of whom are despots put and kept in place by western powers.
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Antarctica and Greenland deserts (Score:2)
No waaaaay! (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean the phenomena of man made climate change that has been know for more than a century is causing increased heat and desertification overall? No waaaay!
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Yes, waaaay!
Here's a news-post from 1912 ... (Score:3)
... mentioning man-made climate change. This was around the time that the hypothesis of man-made climate change - that had been around for decades(!) - had it's first studies confirming it. Hence the news post I presume. Makes sense.
https://images.theconversation... [theconversation.com]
You're welcome.
Good job... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good job... (Score:4, Insightful)
And then, people like you blame it on local farmers.
Re: Good job... (Score:1, Flamebait)
No mini ice age in medieval times[Re: Good job...] (Score:3)
Why did we have a mini ice age in medieval times? Not enough cars?
If you don't even know the difference between the Medieval Warm Period and the little ice age (which was not medieval), please stop posting your climate ignorance on slashdot.
It's bad enough trying to correct the misinformation of people who actually do know a little about climate; people who haven't even bothered to google "what are the current talking points to use to attack climate science" and don't even know the vocabulary just waste everybody's time.
Re:No mini ice age in medieval times[Re: Good job. (Score:4, Informative)
So I slighly misremembered. Big whoop.
Your "misremembering" is not the problem, it was just the visible tag showing that you don't know anything about what you're talking about and hadn't taken even the smallest amount of time to learn.
Are you going to try and rebut the actual point I was making or is it just petty childish insults from now on?
Since you didn't make any "actual point", that's impossible to do. You made a snarky comment about medieval cars, and made it in the form of the "Just asking a question" style.
If the point you thought you were making was that greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are only one of several causes for variations in weather and in climate, and that the anthropogenic greenhouse warming is in addition to, and not instead of other sources of variation, yes, that is well known.
It is also true, however, that in the present day we have very good measurements of all the other factors, as well as global measurements of meteorology, including measurements of associated parameters such as temperature variation with altitude and diurnal temperature variation, and this allows us to understand that other factors are not responsible for the current warming.
No wonder you have such a hard time correcting "misinformation."
The reason I have a hard time correcting misinformation is that the people posting it never cared about the information in the first place, they were just "making a point".
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Re: Good job... (Score:2)
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...to all the climate change skeptics on this forum who've been gaslighting us for the part two decades. As they unfold over the next few decades, take pride in the small part you played in helping seed the great famines of the 21st century.
Says person posting online no doubt from a device they've bought which replaced a perfectly good functioning device they were already using for no other reason than it was a shiny new thing, oblivious to their own contribution to climate change through said act.
Sorry guys... (Score:2)
Capitalism says more money can be extracted from not fixing the problem. Especially today, more profit today, tomorrow's profits are too far away to plan for. There will be no solutions found. Treat the symptom, not the disease, as it were. Tax, tax, tax, tax...
Blaming 'capitalism' is simplistic (Score:3)
Farmers want to produce more food from their land, so act in ways that damage the environment. Unless there is no incentive for farmers to produce more - in which case why should they get up in the morning, which is what did in Soviet agriculture - this is inevitable. What are you suggesting as an alternative?
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Farmers want to produce more food from their land, so act in ways that damage the environment. Unless there is no incentive for farmers to produce more - in which case why should they get up in the morning, which is what did in Soviet agriculture - this is inevitable. What are you suggesting as an alternative?
This is indeed a concise statement of the tragedy of the commons.
So, what are you suggesting as an alternative?
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Treat the symptom, not the disease, as it were.
People. You're talking about people. Because this has come about through deforestation which is only done by people.
Re: Sorry guys... (Score:2)
Re: Sorry guys... (Score:2)
So I went to read the actual paper... (Score:5, Informative)
In reality, we have massively increased arable land in last 30 years. Hell, we're farming Sahel now. Can be seen from orbit as massive greening of the planet's surface.
This study bypassed this observable reality by using "AI aridity index", a completely novel measurement and scoring system (mentioned in 1.3. in the actual report, this is not an actual study). They openly state that this change is "controversial" because... well it only turns reality on its head. Reality observable from space no less.
https://www.unccd.int/sites/de... [unccd.int]
Notably this isn't a scientific paper at all, though it masquerades as such. This is a political policy paper. It's stated clearly on the cover: "A report of the science-policy interface". It's basically a political tool of the editorial people granted to government bureaucrats to use against people who try to act on reality rather than arbitrary claims of "increase in aridity and reduction of arable land" via using novel "index" that uses controversial new redefinition of terms and methods (far from the first time this is done for this purpose by this body) and therefore go against the currently hard pushed political narrative of "developed countries must set up even greater money transfers to developing nations".
Mod this 'insightful' (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you for making the effort to read the paper and thus challenging it.
Re:So I went to read the actual paper... (Score:5, Insightful)
>The greening of the Sahel, over the last ~30 years, arose as a consequence of increased rainfall (+40% according to one of the original papers studying the effect), compared to decades long droughts prior to that. The greenery in question is, in fact, largely tree cover, and while some farming does take place it's not the driver of the greening seen in satellite observation.
Standard obfuscation of political operatives. "Yes, it's not going more arid but more wet, but it's the wrong kind of wet so it doesn't count".
When in reality what happens is that you first get in trees that have strong root structure that binds soil allowing it to slowly regenerate, and that allows you to move farmlands after a decade or so deeper. And keep going every decade or so.
>Interesting that you should put both the abbreviation and the full term together in quotes. I mean, on this site when someone see the term AI they're likely to assume it stands for 'artificial intelligence', so putting both together suggests, intentionally or otherwise, 'artificial intelligence aridity index'.
Political operative next attempts FUD. The reason I use quotations is because they are specific terms used in report's definitions, as seen in 1.3.
>I do not believe you would recognise, or fairly represent, a scientific paper if you saw one.
Third attempt. "You lack faith". Correct. I do not have faith, I prefer observable reality. Unlike political operatives like yourself, who operate on faith alone.
>Are you sure you actually read the paper? How about any of the 40 pages of references cited within it?
"Did you waste all your time reading every detail, instead of noting that paper itself admits that it operates off numbers pulled out of the ether, because even though it operates on anti-reality numbers it may have other valuable points".
No. I have learned how political policy papers work, and I usually start with "ok, where do your numbers come from?". This is usually hidden as is the case here somewhere deep in the paper, and for most pundit garbage being regurtigated by the politicos writing these reports, it's usually not actual measured numbers but some kind of an "index". Which when you go into it is nothing but cherry picked data, ran through a cherry picked model, with cherry picked weights to generate desired outcome.
We have decades long history of this exact agency doing this on massive scale. Example: "ice free arctic". Another example: this current narrative of "desertification" (reminder: we were supposed to face billion grade famines due to desertification across Africa by 2010s, 2020 at the latest. Observation of relaity tells us that today, Africa has an obesity epidemic).
>I mean there are some developing nations in that list, but if you think that 'money transfers' were the thrust of the paper, I fear you missed the point.
This is the "first time" meme moment. Is this your first time reading this sort of political policy paper from UN? They output them by the thousands. Primary reason for them is bureaucracy uses these (usually headlines only, and a few selected quotes from within) to inject into national policy papers and political speeches. Which then drives national policy in a desired political direction, often in direct opposition to reality. This is why these papers always run these "indexes" and "ratios" and "models" rather than numbers from observable reality. Latter are far easier for critics to site in opposition to the policy on national level. "You got this one wrong". But when you use complex obfuscation techniques, it enables political operatives to push things like "wind is going to make power super cheap, here's the index!" until reality dawns on the population when it's already too late and wind has in fact been mass deployed, and energy requiring industries start to rapidly offshore in face of rapidly climbing electricity costs even as political propaganda "look at how cheap power is at these select times" continues in the mainstream. All while people receive bills ten times what they used to, and we get Germany of 2010s, a supposedly industrial powerhouse where poor kids do homework in candle light because their family cannot afford to turn electric lights on.
Re:So I went to read the actual paper... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you for providing an excellent example as to how these papers are used by political operatives to twist reality on its head and make anti-reality claims it by its own 1.3. definitions section definitionally cannot make.
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It doesn't mean every place will get drier. And you've found one of the places it's getting wetter. Do you think you deserve a medal?
Yes, he obviously does, read any comment by him.
The globe is getting drier on average, but he identified a place where substantial human effort made a little bit of it wetter and felt smart, then he shit on the chessboard and declared victory.
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>The greening of the Sahel, over the last ~30 years, arose as a consequence of increased rainfall (+40% according to one of the original papers studying the effect), compared to decades long droughts prior to that. The greenery in question is, in fact, largely tree cover, and while some farming does take place it's not the driver of the greening seen in satellite observation.
Standard obfuscation of political operatives. "Yes, it's not going more arid but more wet, but it's the wrong kind of wet so it doesn't count".
Did I say it's the wrong kind of wet? I pointed out that the reason for the greening of the Sahel was increased tree cover due to increased rain. That's it. Any obfuscation is coming from you.
>Interesting that you should put both the abbreviation and the full term together in quotes. I mean, on this site when someone see the term AI they're likely to assume it stands for 'artificial intelligence', so putting both together suggests, intentionally or otherwise, 'artificial intelligence aridity index'.
Political operative next attempts FUD. The reason I use quotations is because they are specific terms used in report's definitions, as seen in 1.3.
Please do point out exactly which page in the paper uses the phrase "AI aridity index" exactly as you quoted it. If you can find one example that's not in the list of Abbreviations (which is most definitely not section 1.3) I'll eat my hat.
>I do not believe you would recognise, or fairly represent, a scientific paper if you saw one.
Third attempt. "You lack faith". Correct. I do not have faith, I prefer observable reality. Unlike political operatives like yourself, who operate on faith alone.
I'm beginning to suspect that you're an idiot. You've put "You lack faith" in qu
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Did I say it's the wrong kind of wet? I pointed out that the reason for the greening of the Sahel was increased tree cover due to increased rain. That's it. Any obfuscation is coming from you
It is the opposite way around. Due to reforesting projects, there is more rain.
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The drivers of the greening are massive forestation projects.
People plant since decades billons of trees - not per year - but per month.
Either you are completely uninformed or another influencer troll.
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The funniest part about this attempt at FUD is that report itself clearly states that it's use of this index is, and I quote: "controversial".
When the very people pushing numbers admit in the first paragraph of their definitions section that their numbers are even in their own most charitable interpretation "controversial", nothing else really should have been needed to be said. But political operatives will do what political operatives do. Spam FUD, obfuscate and lie.
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1.2. CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS
Aridity versus drought and water scarcity
Aridity refers to a climatic condition that can be characterized by the amount of available moisture to support life. Drought, by contrast, is defined as an exceptional period of water shortage for existing ecosystems and human populations, often attributed to low rainfall, high temperatures and/or wind (IPCC, 2021). Drought is temporary, in contrast to the permanent climate features associated with aridity. Drought is often considered as abnormally dry weather with a sufficiently prolonged lack of precipitation causing a serious hydrological imbalance. Drought is recognized as part of natural climate variability, although human factors can act as amplifiers, and is capable of occurring in virtually any climatic regime, including both high and low rainfall areas.
But political operatives will do what political operatives do. Spam FUD, obfuscate and lie.
You do do a lot of that don't you...
Build more walls, great green walls (Score:2)
Duh (Score:3)
Did you recall the water cycle from elementary/ middle school earth science? Weâ(TM)ve been pumping our aquifers dry and fast tracking storm water into oceans for decades, if not centuries. This has broken the water cycle and ensured that we are at least that far off from replenishing our drinking water.
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Did you recall the water cycle from elementary/ middle school earth science? Weâ(TM)ve been pumping our aquifers dry and fast tracking storm water into oceans for decades, if not centuries. This has broken the water cycle and ensured that we are at least that far off from replenishing our drinking water.
True, but this is a very different issue from the Aridity Index* being discussed here.
-- /.)
*(referred to as "AI"-- a confusing acronym, especially here on
Why only mention climate change? (Score:1)
Compared to land/water use due to population growth, climate change is just a drop in the bucket here.
The reversibility of fossil water exhaustion and human caused soil degradation and desertification isn't much better than climate change either. Having lingering effects for 100 generations rather than 1000 doesn't really matter if everything goes to shit. The world will be shit for human civilization regardless.
The Club of Rome was right all along and no one wants to admit it.
Dryland's a myth! (Score:3)
Mariner: No more lies. What are the marks on her back?
Helen: People-people say it's the way to Dryland.
Mariner: DRYLAND'S A MYTH!
Helen: No. You said that you know where it is. You did.
Mariner: Then you're a fool to believe in something you've never even seen before.
Helen: I've seen it. I've touched it. Dirt that was richer and darker than yours. It was in the basket we found Enola in.
Mariner: It doesn't exist!
Helen: Well, how can you be so sure?
Mariner: Because, I've sailed further than most have dreamed and I've never seen it.
Helen: But the things on your boat.
Mariner: Things on my boat what?
Helen: There are things on your boat that nobody has ever seen. What are these shells? And the music box? And the reflecting glass? Well, if not from Dryland then where? Where?
Mariner: You want to see Dryland? You really want to see it? I'll take you to Dryland.
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Criminally underrated movie.
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Criminally underrated movie.
Criminally stupid movie.
aridity is increasing? (Score:2)
...Yet the data show that 1900-2017 global drought is decreasing.
The average km2 in severe drought has dropped from 12 million to 9 million. Not a radical amount, but statistically significant and completely in opposition to the claim of "increasing aridity".
https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
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Precipitation can increase, but the population in Africa and India is increasing faster.
Drought is purely a function of precipitation, aridification is not.
Obfuscatory Units (Score:2)
- Earth's land area is 149 million sq km
- - Earth's "Drylands" are generally considered to be between 40% and 47% depending on the source
- India is 27.9 million sq km
- 1.33 * => 37,107
- Which is 25% of the Earth to be added to the above drylands number
- Which is not a reasonable number
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And if you look on satellite photos: those numbers make no sense at all.
I guess it is a question how you define a "dry land".
turn your deserts into food (Score:1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]