Cause+of+the+drought

Delayed rain or insufficent rainfall
As Russia is located between the Tropic of Cancer and the Artics circle and is located inland, it generally experiences a moderate to low rainfall. It is made worse when the rains are delayed and insufficent, causing droughts.

=Heatwave=

Before we get into the main cause of the drought, let us be familiarized with the climate in Moscow first as Moscow was the most critical-hit area. Moscow experiences humid continental climate, which has hum id summers and long, cold winters. Typical high temperatures in the warm months of June, July and August are around 23 degree Celsius, but during heat waves, that can occur anytime from May to September. Daytime temperature highs often top 30 °C for sometimes one or two weeks. In the winter, temperatures normally drop to approximately −10 °C, though there can be periods of warmth with temperatures rising above 0 °C. The climate of Moscow can be clearly shown in the climograph below.



The climate of Moscow, Russia is affected by quite a lot of factors too. Moscow is situated inland. The nearest water body from Moscow, Caspian Sea, is located about 1000 kilometers away. Therefore, the precipitation in Moscow is low with and annual precipitation of around 500mm. Besides, the temperature in Moscow, situated 6334 kilometers from the equator, is low as sunlight is not received as intense as it is in the equator. Thus, less heat energy is distributed by electromagnetic waves from the sun. With less heat energy, water evaporates at a slower rate, rendering a low amount of precipitation in Moscow.

=The abnormals in 2010=

In the year 2010, most parts of Russia experience heat waves, causing an increase in temperature throughout the nation. From the climograph below, we can see that Moscow was experiencing unusual hot temperature which was as high as the temperature in equatorial areas. It came out that on 26 July 2010, the temperature hit a record high of 37.5 degree Celsius, even higher than that being experienced in equatorial countries.



The stark increase in temperature is caused by the unusual heatwave occurred in the summer of 2010. So what is a heatwave?

In the summer in warm climates, an area of high pressure with little or no rain or clouds, the air and ground easily heats to excess. A static high pressure area can impose a very persistent heat wave. The position of the [|jet stream] allows air on one side to be considerably warmer than the other side. Heat waves are far more common and more severe on the warm side and at times an unusual position of the jet stream places unusual warmth in an unusual place for hot weather, and imposes a heat wave. [|El Niño] and La Niña (opposite reaction to El Niño) can severely disrupt the positions of the jet streams. Large desert zones and dry areas are more likely to get extreme heat because there is rarely any high cloud cover with very low humidity. Winds from hot deserts typically push hot, dry air towards areas normally cooler than during a heat wave. During the summer an area that has no geographic features that might cool winds that originate in the hot deserts get little mitigation, especially near the summer solstice when long days and a high sun would create warm conditions even without the transport of hot air from other locations. Below shows the effects of heatwave in 2010 that resulted in temperature change in 2010.



Reduced forest cover
When the forest are cleared, the reduced vegetation cover results in lower rates of transpiration, leading to less water vapour in the atmosphere. Thus,fewer clouds are formed. Consequently, there is less rain and droughts occur. In addition, when trees are cut down, the ground is exposed to direct heating by the Sun and the soil dries up quickly.

Impact of enhanced greenhouse effect
While global warming causes floods to occur in some parts of the world during the wetter seasons, it can also cause droughts in places with drier climates. In Russia, high temperatures cause rapid evaporation,which dries up the moisture in the land, rivers and lakes. As water is very scarce in these cool temperate climate, droughts occur if rain does not fall to fill the water bodies. More droughts are imminent as global temperatures are projected to rise with the increase in emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

We have known that Russia experiences a climate with low amount of precipitation. With a higher temperature and lower than usual precipitation, Russia became hot and dry, causing a drought to occur.

Click to Impact of the Drought