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More than 75 percent of the world was converted permanently drier over the past three decades, according to a report by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
The report, released Monday, found that about 77.6 percent of the world it became drier from 1990 to 2020, more than it did in the previous three decades.
During this period, parts of the earth were classified as dry lands it expanded over about 1.66 million square miles, an area larger than India. These lands now account for more than 40 percent of the world, according to the UNCCD.
Nearly 8 percent of the planet crossed the line from non-arid to dry land in recent decades, much of which was previously wet, and another 3 percent of similar areas could cross that threshold at the end of the 21st century without reduction. in greenhouse gas emissions, the group warned in its report.
The UNCCD attributes much of the increasing aridity to human-caused climate change, which affects both temperature and rainfall. Although the permanent dryness described in the report is different from drought conditionsthe US West has seen the same way warmer temperatures increase the risk of devastating fires due to the reduction of snow cover in recent years.
If drylands expand further, several regions are likely to be affected, the UNCCD found: Areas that would see their drylands expand in a high-emissions scenario include the US Midwest, the central of Mexico, wide swaths of southern Africa and the entire Mediterranean.
“Unlike droughts, temporary periods of low rainfall, aridity represents a permanent and relentless transformation,” UNCCD Executive Secretary Ibrahim Thiaw said in a statement. “The droughts are over. However, when an area’s climate becomes drier, it loses the ability to return to previous conditions.”
“The drier climates now affecting large swathes of land around the world will not return to what they were, and this change is redefining life on Earth,” added Thiaw.
