A potential change in the tropical rain belt threatens food security for billions

Weather of Arabia - A new study warned that future climate change will lead to an irregular shift in the tropical rain belt, threatening the livelihood and food security of billions of people due to drought, and lead to increased floods in parts of India, and the Tropical Rain Belt It is a narrow range of meteorological systems that bring with them heavy rainfall near the equator.

But as temperatures rise in different parts of the Earth's atmosphere at different rates, it seems that this belt may be disrupted so that it is attracted to warmer air areas, bringing with it rain far from those areas, which threatens biodiversity and affects the main source of water that people depend on. , Especially in growing crops.

The study, published in Nature Climate Change , used computer simulations from 27 recent climate models and measured the response of the equatorial rain belt to the future scenario in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise until the end of the current century, but the full impact of the climate crisis on the belt Tropical rain only became apparent when the effects on the eastern and western hemispheres were isolated, and these were studied separately.

It was concluded that climate change will cause the Earth's equatorial rain belt to move in two opposite directions in two longitudinal sectors covering nearly two-thirds of the globe, a process that will have cascading effects on water availability and food production around the world.

According to projections, the equatorial rain belt in the Western Hemisphere (across the eastern Pacific and Atlantic Ocean) will shift southward, resulting in increased droughts in parts of Central America.

In the Eastern Hemisphere, including East Africa and the Indian Ocean, the equatorial rain belt is expected to shift northward, causing more common and persistent droughts in regions such as Southeast Africa and Madagascar, with increased risks from high flood intensity in the south. India, this will affect global biodiversity and food security by 2100.

(Picture of a scene from India's floods, which is expected to increase as the equatorial rain belt turns northward in the eastern hemisphere)

Scientists have stated that this "sweeping shift" of the rain belt has been concealed in previous studies that provided a global average of the impact of climate change, although climate change has caused the atmosphere to warm in different amounts over Asia and the North Atlantic Ocean.

Despite the complexity of the Earth's system and the difficulty of studying it, this study combines the engineering approach of the system, data analyzes and climate science to uncover the subtle and unrecognized aspects of global warming on regional rainfall dynamics and other extremes.

In Asia, for example, climate change is now causing many effects, such as melting glaciers in the Himalayas, and the loss of snow cover in northern regions, and this will lead to a faster increase in the temperature of the atmosphere in other regions, so the equatorial rain belt is expected to move north In the eastern hemisphere was among the expected impacts of climate change, and these changes could occur as early as the turn of the century, underlining the urgent need to control greenhouse gas emissions.

This is just one of the many worrying effects expected of climate change, which will not only prevent a person from leading a normal life on Earth, but will continue to make conditions worse, such as dominoes that once the first stone falls, the rest will be difficult to control, so all Work that can be done now counts.

Scientists hope that having a greater understanding of what's coming - as this study advances - will push individuals and governments alike to make the fundamental changes that could give us all a better future.

This study was published in Nature Climate Change .