The summer cooling effect under the projected restoration of Aral Sea in Central Asia

The Aral Sea once covered 68 × 103 km 2 , but lost 90% of its area during the last decades due to unreasonable water resources utilization. Fortunately, some measures to save the Aral Sea have been proposed. Regional climate model ALARO-SURFEX was applied in dynamic downscaling simulations to quantify the climatic effects generated by increasing greenhousegas (GHG) emissions and the Aral Sea restoration. The results show that performance of CNRM-CM5 dynamically downscaled by ALARO-SURFEX in reproducing 2-m temperature is reliable and better than outputs of 17 global climate models. If the Aral Sea kept the almost dry-up state (8.6 × 103 km 2 ) in the future (2021–2050), the Aral Sea region will suffer a warmer summer than in historical period. Daily maximum (T2max), mean (T2avg), and minimum (T2min) temperature will rise by 0.91 °C, 1.06 °C, and 1.22 °C, respectively, and reduce diurnal temperature range (DTR) by 0.31 °C. If the Aral Sea could recover to twice its current area (17.2 × 103 km 2 ), the T2max and T2avg (T2min) over the ambient region of Aral Sea (350 km) will reduce (increase) by 1.54 and 1.10 °C (1.16 °C), respectively, which can dampen the DTR by 2.4 °C. The cooling effect induced by the projected Aral Sea restoration is mainly contributed by enhanced latent heat. While the warming effect caused by GHG emissions increase is primarily attributed to increased incoming longwave radiation. This study quantified the summer cooling effect under the projected restoration of Aral Sea, which could provide scientific reference in working out the sustainable development strategies under the warming threat in Central Asia.