Because of Global Warming, 550 Square Kilometers in South of Russia Now Turning Into Desert Every Year, SFU Scholars Say

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 15 – Russians and others have long focused on the ways in which climate change is warming the Russian north and melting the permafrost there, but they have devoted less attention to the impact of global warming on the south of Russia where this trend is leading to desertification.
    Now, a group of scholars at Russia’s Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don are reporting that the desertification of the Russian south is occurring at the rate of 550 square kilometers each year, threatening not only the environment but the economy and forcing people to leave these areas (akcent.site/novosti/36577).
    Rising temperatures are the primary culprit, the scholars say; and they have already seriously changed the region’s biological diversity and are increasingly having an impact on human life in the region. Tragically, however, regional officials are doing little or nothing beyond denouncing it to counter this trend (astrakhanpost.ru/astraxanskuyu-oblast-atakuet-pustynya/).  
    If that continues and if Moscow does not intervene, the SFU experts suggest, then the negative impact of climate change in the southern portions of the Russian Federation will only have broader and more negative consequences for the country as a whole in the coming years and decades.