This year, South Asian power pakistan suffered a once-in-a-decade flood that has intensified and escalated since mid-June, engulfing 1.2 million homes, 5,000 kilometers of roads and 240 bridges, affecting 33 million people and killing more than 1,200 people by early September.
Since August this year, the US satellite has also been very concerned about the flooding in Pakistan, the Earth satellite has taken images of Pakistan, the US Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat8 and Landsat9, the commercial satellite worldview 3 and world view2 of private companies.
Landsat8 and Landsat9 are Earth observation satellites operated by the U.S. Geological Survey and supported by data from NASA, which better distinguish between floods (dark blue), the ground, roads, and forests, are taken with near-infrared red waves, short-wave infrared (band 6-5-4), and then produce false-color images.
Comparing two satellite images taken on August 4 and August 28, pakistan's landscape has changed dramatically, flooding, and 1/3 of the area has been engulfed by water, especially along the Indus River, where flooding is the most severe and a huge lake has appeared near the river.
In August this year, the mainland Yangtze River Basin drought, the water level of the Yangtze River dropped sharply, the Han River section bottomed out, revealing a stone path located at the bottom of the river, some people walked along the stone path at the bottom of the Han River for 1 kilometer, Poyang Lake was thinned into a "river" because of drought, and now pakistan's rivers have become "lakes", which is really a satire of nature.
August 4 landsat8 images show that Pakistan's Indus River is about 50 kilometers apart from Lake Hamar, with the Qambar Shahdadkot region in the middle, where hundreds of thousands of people live, and August 28 landsat9 satellite imagery showing the Indus River merging with Lake Hamar.
Satellite images of the cities of Qambar and Shikarpur in Pakistan's Sindh province revealed how quickly floods progressed in August, with rainfall in the two cities exceeding 500 percent of the average in July and August, and pakistan's Earth Observatory statistics showed pakistan receiving three times the average rainfall in the past 30 years.
The European Space Agency satellite also took images on August 30 showing the area between the Pakistani cities of Delamrad Jamali and Lakana, which are located in the northeast and due east directions of Lake Hamar, but are now both submerged by the Indus River and replaced by a huge lake.
In August this year, there were three main reasons for the drought in the Yangtze River Basin of the mainland, first, the subtropical high pressure moved north, strongly controlling the southern region, resulting in a sharp reduction in rainfall, second, under the background of global warming, and third, the "three consecutive championships" of the La Niña phenomenon, so what is the reason for the extreme flood in Pakistan?
First, global warming, in April and May this year, the temperature in many parts of Pakistan rose to 40 °C, for example, the high temperature in the city of Jacobabad reached 51 °C, which is not a normal temperature, indicating that under the background of global warming, South Asia is getting hotter and hotter, and Pakistan has become one of the hottest regions in the world.
Extreme heat evaporates more moisture and warmer air accommodates more moisture, which has led to much higher than average rainfall in Pakistan during the monsoon season from July to 9 this year, global warming has led to rising sea levels, increased evaporation of water bodies, and intensified movements of the Earth's water cycle.
Second, glacier melting, the northern region of Pakistan has more than 7,000 glaciers, is the world's largest number of glaciers outside the polar region countries, in recent years, the earth is constantly warming, glaciers around the world are rapidly dying, under the high temperature, Pakistan glaciers are not spared.
From 1952 to 2009, temperatures in Pakistan rose by 0.3°C per decade, and this summer, temperatures are higher and last longer, with glaciers in northern Pakistan melting rapidly, and glacial meltwater flowing into rivers along with precipitation, increasing the destructive power of floods and exacerbating the disaster.
Third, the "triple crown" of the La Niña phenomenon, The La Niña phenomenon extends from 2020 to 2022, about 70% of which may affect the winter of 2022, although the effect of the La Niña phenomenon on the summer high temperature is not very strong, but it will increase the effect of rainfall, in short, the La Niña phenomenon will lead to abnormal climate trends.
Pakistan's flooding is so severe that the planet is once again sounding the climate alarm that we want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stop the planet from warming, yet some European and American countries are doing the opposite, and this year they reopened their long-closed thermal power stations (burning coal) and transporting large quantities of coal by car and boat.