The year 2022 will be remembered with extreme heat waves and droughts across the world. From India and Pakistan to the USA and Europe, as the continents struggle with extreme dry weather, dangerous and dramatic flooding occurs in many regions after months without rain. Satellite imagery shows China’s Yangtze River and many other rivers reaching historic lows, a frightening new consequence of the unfolding climate crisis.
The Yangtze River is used to supply water to 400 million people in China, as well as for hydroelectric power and shipping routes. The Yangtze, the world’s third longest river and basin, has received 45 percent less precipitation than the average this year. The record-breaking heatwave that China is currently experiencing is expected to continue until September.
Observations from space by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission focused on the Yangtze and Jialing rivers near Chongqing in August 2020, 2021 and last week. The difference is very clear. While low water levels have revealed ancient Buddha statues in China, ancient stones have emerged in the dried-up Elbe river in Europe. In America, he began to identify bodies from the mud of Lake Mead.
Heat wave reaches 40°C in China
The country is currently experimenting with cloud seeding, a form of geoengineering for precipitation in crop-growing areas. This technique uses silver iodide or other crystalline particles to act as a nucleus around which raindrops can form. Scientists are divided on how effective this technique is, but that hasn’t stopped China from trying it. If the method proves effective, it can be used for other regions as well. In fact, the global climate crisis may make these and similar methods a reality that we will need.
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