It was minus 45 degrees Celsius when Uganaa, a 27-year-old nomad with a wife and two children, woke up to howling winds outside his felt-covered traditional Mongolian ger. Sensing that something was wrong, he quickly put on a thick fur coat and noticed that it had snowed again during the night. Then he shoveled out.
When I stepped outside, the air was so cold that my breath condensed on my scarf, freezing my eyebrows and eyelashes. Uganer had left more than 100 goats and sheep outside the night before, but now they were nowhere to be seen. There were no footprints. He found his prized herd of cattle, which he had raised with his uncle and aunt since he was born, to be under more than three feet of snow. Everyone was frozen to death.
This winter, 90 percent Regions of Mongolia are at risk from a deadly combination of frigid temperatures, heavy snow and strong winds. This is a phenomenon known as „zud“.In this Central Asian country, there used to be an outbreak of dzud about once every 10 years, but now Six Scientists say this trend over the past decade is linked to climate change. Mongolians, who rely on animals for food, fuel and income, are currently experiencing two consecutive winters of severe dzud. As of the last week of February, the number of dead animals was 2.1 millionrises from 600,000 Just two weeks ago.The blizzard caused at least one death. 9 peopleincluding one child.
When a dzud strikes, the question is not whether death will occur, but how many people, both humans and animals, will die.
Winter in Mongolia is characterized by cold. Domestic animals survive by moving, growing thick fur, and grazing through snow and ice. But this winter, the herd has struggled both in the „white“ dzud, where very deep snow prevents access to grass, and in the „iron“ dzud, where short periods of snow thaw quickly freeze hard and the pasture becomes trapped. There is. ice.
It snowed nationwide in January. double Long-term average is over 13,500 people household In areas covered with snow. „I have never seen snow comparable to the height of the ger in my life,“ said Tserembadam G, a nomad in his 70s. „This winter has been particularly harsh.'' Scientists say climate change is changing winter weather and leading to more extreme weather. A mass of frigid Arctic air is spreading over Mongolia, and snowfall is increasing. And the snow is „not gradual over a long period of time as observed in the past,“ said Batjalgal Zamba, a scientific advisor at Mongolia's Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Environmental Information.
Nomads usually feel a sense of relief when they arrive at Tsagaan Sar (Lunar New Year, which heralds the arrival of spring). This period is from the end of January to the first weeks of February. Tserembada celebrated Tsagaan Sar on February 10 in anticipation of rising temperatures. But they haven't arrived yet.
In Sukhbaatar province, a nomadic ger buried in snow (left) and a sheep pen with corpses piled up outside the fence (right).
Tenger TV
“It used to get warm right after the New Year, but now it gets even colder after Tsagaan Sar,” she said. Other older nomads said they had rarely seen people left behind with only a handful of animals out of hundreds. However, many pastoralists are already in that position as the dzud is not yet over this year.
Mongolia's approximately 1 million pastoralists depend for survival on 65 million livestock, which provide fuel in the form of meat, milk, and animal waste. Pastoralists sell animal skins, wool, and cashmere to buy food and pay their children's school and university fees. The loss of animals this winter has pushed thousands of people into poverty.
When zud strikes, it is not a question of whether death will occur, but how many people will die, both humans and animals. Some pastoralists die trying to care for their animals. Some people die searching for lost animals in snowstorms. (The National Emergency Response Center is taking at least the following actions.) 89 calls The person has been missing since November. ) Snowstorms can trap people in their homes all day and night. Without pastoralists to keep them mobile, animals freeze to death.
Summer drought portends dzud, as malnutrition makes livestock vulnerable to harsh winter conditions.
Dzuds also cut people off from basic services. With snow blocking roads, it can take several days for nomads to reach grocery stores in their soum centers, village-like settlements where nomads can buy supplies.is more than 40,000 households The livestock have run out of fodder. More than 13,000 families need medical care. According to the State Emergency Committee (SEC), nearly 6,000 households lack food.
On February 14th, the Mongolian government announced The country raised its disaster response level to „high alert“ and announced that it had delivered feed, food, gas and medical supplies to pastoralists. Government officials have begun distributing 15 bags of feed per household in several states at highest risk. But supplies will take longer to arrive in some remote states of the least-populated country on earth. SEC I will remove snow However, heavy snow continues to fall, hampering the committee's progress.
The United Nations and some international aid agencies are also intervening.The United Nations aims to mobilize $6.3 million For disaster relief. But when the money is distributed among nomads and their millions of animals, nomads say they don't have enough money to cover more than two bags of feed per household on average. (On one bag of feed he could keep one sheep alive for about a week.)
Nomads who raise horses and sheep in Tub Aimak, Mongolia.
Britta Pedersen/Picture Alliance via Getty Images
Dzud is accompanied by mass mortality, but nomads are not surprised. Summer droughts are a precursor, as lack of forage leads to malnutrition and makes livestock vulnerable to harsh winter conditions. Recent reports show that mortality rates are higher in drought-drought years than in years with dzud or drought alone. study.
Droughts have become more severe over the past half century more often. last year, 40 percent The Mongolian people experienced drought and dry weather. These summer conditions not only prevented animals from storing fat, but also prevented pastoralists from storing enough forage for the winter.
Due to climate change, dzud is increasing Strength. One factor could be a weakening of the polar jet stream, a narrow band of fast-flowing winds that orbit the Earth. The jet stream is formed by the collision of cold air in the Arctic and warm air in the south. climate change, The Arctic is warming faster than other regions, and temperature differences are narrowing. As a result, the jet stream has weakened and become more meandering, allowing the frigid air to reach all the way to Mongolia, Batjargal said.
Winter snowfall has increased significantly in Mongolia since 1961, increasing by an average of 40%.
From 2000 to 2016, Mongolia experienced extreme cold. 28 percent According to one study, it's more common than it was from 1981 to 1999. Additionally, although total precipitation has changed little in recent decades, Mongolia has seen a significant increase in winter snowfall, and its amount is increasing year by year. 40 percentIncreased snowfall has a cooling effect, making extreme cold more likely. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Said He said Mongolia is a country „very prone“ to natural disasters and the situation for pastoralists is likely to worsen in the coming years. Even if the world is on track for warming by about 2 degrees Celsius, he is predicted to warm up to 2 degrees Celsius. 20 percent By 2080 it will become more frequent.
Pastoralists responded to this year's disaster by slaughtering the weakest animals they knew would not be able to survive the coming disaster. The oversupply of meat has caused prices to drop significantly, further exacerbating the challenges faced by pastoralists. However, no amount of preparation can reduce the impact of a dzud of this magnitude. The IPCC reports that „high levels of livestock mortality are often unavoidable in national zud events, even among the most experienced pastoralists.“
The carcass of a dead animal near Ulaanbaatar during the 2010 dzud.
Adam Dean/Bloomberg via Getty Images
However, nomads also bear a certain responsibility for losses. Over the past 30 years, Mongolia's livestock population has more than doubled, and desertification has worsened across three-quarters of the country.according to data According to the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, 49 percent of Mongolia's desertification is due to overgrazing, and the rest is due to climate change.
“Overgrazing causes drought-like conditions in the summer, which increases the likelihood of dzud in the winter,” says Bhatjalgal. If livestock numbers were the same as they were in the 1970s, „we wouldn't be seeing so many animal deaths,“ he added.
However, despite the increasing frequency of Dzud, most government relief plans are only temporary. In 2010, a combination of black, white, and iron zuzd caused by drought, subsequent heavy snowfall, and subsequent extreme cold and ice resulted in the loss of more than 10 million animals and caused food insecurity in various regions across Mongolia. I got it.
Some pastoralists in remote areas view the government's temporary relief programs as mere propaganda.
On February 20, the Democratic Party of Mongolia proposed a one-time forgiveness of $340,000 in loans made by nomads. However, long-term adaptation strategies are still lacking. In the past, the government has provided immediate relief and then helped replenish herders. However, the IPCC suggests that this approach is costly, relatively inefficient, and may not provide incentives for pastoralists to minimize livestock mortality. “Restocking in areas with drought, poor pasture conditions, or unsuitable animals can actually increase the vulnerability of livestock in the following year as a result of increased competition for scarce resources,” the IPCC said. Stated. Still, the temporary relief program continues, with Mongolia's Ministry of Agriculture saying it plans to replenish it after this year's dzud.
Some pastoralists in remote areas view the government's temporary relief programs as mere propaganda. “Government officials don't visit pastoralists like me,” says a pastoralist from Khuvsgul, the northernmost province bordering Russia. „(Media personnel) say they are distributing two bags of feed to everyone. I have never seen a kilogram (of feed) in my area.“
Images shared on social media show civil servants eating food provided by nomadic herders, a reversal of their roles from their normal roles. Many pastoralists expressed bewilderment. eyesight About 20 civil servants were traveling across the country in jeeps just to give out two bags of feed.
The forecast for early March is not promising. Temperatures are expected to rise from the second half of this week, and heavy snowstorms are expected to hit the whole country. Be expected plummet. The worst is yet to come. Peak livestock mortality will occur between now and April. Many fear these potential losses will exceed Black's losses in 2010.