Speaking of sandstorms, it can be described as notorious, yellow sand and dust like a high wall, roaring from Mongolia to the south by Siberian cold air masses, sweeping thousands of miles, and even crossing the Qinling-Huai River line to advance to the Yangtze River Basin, if the air is full of water vapor at this time, the spring rain with mud even becomes a northern scene. So why did Mongolia become an important source of sandstorms in East Asia?
Where did the sandstorms that swept through northern China come from?
Sandstorms, which are unpleasant "uninvited guests", belong to a kind of strong dust weather, that is, strong winds sweep the ground sand and dust into the air, resulting in air turbidity and a significant decrease in visibility. By academic definition, when the horizontal visibility caused by a large amount of sand and dust is less than 1 km, and the wind speed reaches 6 or more, it is called a dust storm. Therefore, there are three key conditions for the formation of sandstorms, namely strong wind, unstable strong heat and sand sources, which respectively form the dynamic factor and material basis of sandstorms.
Generally speaking, sandstorms are mainly caused by natural factors, among which wind, temperature, precipitation and related soil surface conditions directly affect the formation and force of sandstorms. As for Mongolia, many people think that it is a vast grassland where windblown grass is low on cattle and sheep, but in fact, more than a quarter of the southern part of Mongolia is covered by the earthy yellow Mongolian Gobi, which is clearly visible from satellite images.
This Mongolian Gobi actually has another name: the Gobi Desert, to be precise, the Gobi Desert is composed of the Gashun Gobi, Dzungar Gobi and the Outer Altai Gobi in the west and the Mongolian Gobi in the central and eastern parts and the Alashan Desert in the south, counting from the East Tianshan Mountain in the west, reaching the western edge of the Greater Khing'an Ridge in the east, from the Altai Mountains and Hangai Mountains in the north to the south, to the Altun Mountains, Beishan and Yin Mountains, spanning a large territory of China and Mongolia, covering an area of about 1.3 million square kilometers. The reason why it is called the Gobi Desert is also because most of the areas here are not deserts, but bare rocks, which belong to gravel deserts.
The Gobi desert has little rain all year round, and the annual precipitation is generally about 100 mm, and in some places it is only 50 mm. Therefore, in the climatic environment of sunny days and long sunshine hours, the daily and annual differences in temperature and ground temperature in the region are large, which provides an energy field for unstable strong heat, and the surface is dry and bare, coupled with sudden windy weather in spring and autumn, so sandstorms are often formed.
Desertification control project of Sanbei shelter forest in Inner Mongolia, China
Fragile ecological environment, low level of carrying capacity
In this environment, it is not suitable for the population to live for a long time, so there is a Mongolian proverb: "It is better to be a cow and horse in hangai, not to be a man in the Gobi." "The Gobi here includes not only gravel deserts, but also saline lands with drought-tolerant plants such as splendid, where grazing is possible, but the living conditions are very difficult. The Mongolian word "hanggai" is a high-quality pasture on the edge of the forest, where rivers originate from the dense forest and deep mountains, nourishing the meadows below the mountains, and the mountain forests, rivers and grasslands form a complete ecosystem.
The Mongolian word for "hangai" is a high-quality pasture on the edge of the forest.
In the Mongolian Plateau and its surrounding areas, there are several larger hangai, such as the Kent Mountains in the east of Mongolia, the Hangai Mountains in the west, the Altai Mountains region on the border between Mongolia, Russia and Xinjiang, China, and the Daxing'an Ridge in eastern Inner Mongolia. That is to say, the place where more herders can live is around the mountains in Mongolia, and the environmental carrying capacity is very limited, which is one of the reasons why Mongolia's population is only 3.4 million, compared with 24.01 million in Inner Mongolia.
Desertification in Mongolia is very serious, with more than three quarters of the land already suffering from varying degrees of desertification.
It can be said that in the vast Gobi desert region in southern Mongolia, everything as far as the eye can see is wilderness, and the ecological environment is very fragile. With today's global changes, more than three-quarters of Mongolia's land has been subjected to varying degrees of desertification, and desertification is spreading rapidly from the south to the steppe belt in the north-central part. It can be said that grassland degradation is stifling the livestock industry that supports Mongolia's economy, but the investment in environmental management is huge and the cycle is long, so Mongolia has turned its attention from the ground to the underground wealth - minerals.
I want to be the Australia of East Asia, but the wind and sand are coming
With an area of 1,566,500 square kilometers, Mongolia is the 19th largest country in the world by land area and the second largest landlocked country in the world after Kazakhstan, with more than 80 kinds of proven minerals and coal, copper, iron, gold, rare earths and uranium reserves in the forefront of the world. The total ore reserves of just one Oyu Tolgoi gold and copper mine are as high as 2 billion tons, including 31.1 million tons of copper, 1,328 tons of gold, 7,600 tons of silver, and the world's largest unmined coal mine, the Taben Tolgoi Coal Mine, with reserves of 6.4 billion tons, including 1.8 billion tons of main coking coal and 4.6 billion tons of thermal coal, all of which are in short supply in the world.
The Taben Tolgoi Coal Mine is the largest unmined coal mine in the world today, with 400 square kilometers of coal reserves in the mining area alone
But this is only the tip of the iceberg of Mongolia's mineral resources, rich underground resources have given Mongolia the idea of "mining to rejuvenate the country", wanting to rely on mining and animal husbandry to walk on two legs to copy Australia's economic achievements. After all, Australia has become a "country on the back of a sheep" and "a country on a mining cart" by relying on developed animal husbandry and mineral development. To this end, Mongolia has enacted a new Mining Law and introduced tax incentives to attract overseas investment.
Mongolia has discovered 31 million tons of rare earth resources and will become the second largest rare earth mineral reserve country after China in the future
So a number of international mining giants poured into Mongolia, and finally after years of exploration and games, the British and Australian Rio Tinto Group won the Oyu Tolgoi Gold and Copper Mine, France's Orano Group took Mongolia's largest uranium mine - Zhuyano Ao Bao Uranium Mine, China's Zijin Mining took the Hamagotai copper and gold mine...., as for the Taben Tolgoi coal mine, although Shenhua Group has been planning for many years, it finally lost its mining rights due to some reasons within Mongolia.
Schematic diagram of the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine.
As a result, super mines were born, especially the Oyu Tolgoi Copper-Gold Mine, one of the world's largest copper-gold mines, whose gross mineral development production value can even reach one-third of Mongolia's GDP, which is the best hope for Mongolia with a total population of only 3.4 million. Whether it is the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine or the Taben Tolgoi coal mine, they are located in the South Gobi Province of Mongolia, which is the Gobi Desert mentioned above, which is not only deserted, lacks water, the ecological environment is very fragile, and lacks the necessary infrastructure.
As a place surrounded by the Gobi Desert, it is expensive to build a modern mine, so Rio Tinto spent more than US$6 billion on the development of the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine before producing the first copper ore, in order to reduce the heavy input burden and to ensure that the underground mine in Oyu Tolgoi reaches full capacity to supplement the open-pit mine, Rio Tinto negotiated with the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and several private institutions to obtain $4.5 billion in debt financing. However, during the negotiations, the EIA of Oyu Tolgoi was exposed.
The Oyu Tolgoi Gold and Copper Mine not only exports all its copper products to China, but also relies on China for its electricity.
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the area where the Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine is located has less than 50 millimetres of annual precipitation, but the mine consumes more than 3 million tonnes of water per month, and although Rio Tinto claims it uses saline "fossil water" sealed in an aquifer, Rio Tinto has not made deep drilling and significant investments in the use of "fossil water", which means directly using precious groundwater, which will deplete local water sources and contaminate water reserves shared by animals and people.
Mongolia became the source of sandstorms in East Asia
Due to the fragile ecology of the Gobi Desert region in southern Mongolia, large-scale mining means the permanent disappearance of desert steppe. And the improper disposal of tailings also makes the environmental damage worse. Various vicious circles are constantly exacerbating Mongolia's serious environmental problems. While these super mines brought wealth, they also made Mongolia's grasslands barren, which in turn brought more wind and sand, so Mongolia became the source of sandstorms in East Asia.
However, unlike copper ore and coal exports to China, which must go through customs clearance, sandstorms blown from Mongolia never need to queue for customs clearance. As a result, there were as many as six sandstorms last month, sweeping through northern and northwestern China on the mainland, and even advancing into the Yangtze River basin for a time, which was jaw-dropping. The bell of ecological degradation has been beaten for Mongolia!
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Note: This article is the 29th chapter of the "Mongolian Collection" series, the series has ended for the time being, just a word of the family, welcome to correct and forward. In addition, the picture in the article is quoted from the Internet, if there is a copyright private link, please delete.