A
scientific research team led by Clyde Goulden, an ecologist at the Academy of
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, set up a seasonal research camp in the Dalbay
valley in Northern Mongolia in 1994, and he has been returning there every year
since. About a decade ago Goulden noticed that the government meteorological
station in Hatgal, the town nearest to his study site, had recorded rapidly
rising temperatures. It made him wonder if global warming might be causing
mischief at his research site, 70 miles away. Studies by others have since
shown that Mongolia has heated up more than almost anywhere else on Earth. Many
of Mongolia’s lakes and rivers have shrunken or disappeared entirely. Its
rangeland has become less lush, a fact one leading Mongolian scientist says is
due in equal parts to over grazing by livestock and to soil desiccated by
higher temperatures.

Goulden
decided to survey the herders he had come to know on local weather changes and
whether any differences in weather had affected their lives. What he found
surprised and disturbed him. One herder and his wife described changes they had
seen in the 30 years they have grazed animals in the valley. Summer winds are
colder and stronger now than they used to be. When they were younger they could
easily anticipate a day’s weather and dress accordingly. Now they cannot.

When
they were young the pastures were watered by long gentle rains known in
Mongolian as shivree rain. Now showers fall torrentially and only briefly,
events called adar rains. They said the adar downpours fall so hard and pass so
quickly that the water flows directly into nearby streams and the lake instead
of soaking into the soil. A Mongolian wildlife biologist calls adar showers
“rains that don’t wet”.

Goulden
has not yet published his results in any scientific journal but hopes to
confirm what the herders said about changes in rainfall patterns after
inspecting rainfall records collected by the Mongolian government.