It took almost a day for Qin Ke and his group of more than ten people to arrive at the edge of the desert, changing from plane to car and then to off-road vehicle.

Qin Ke had been to the Great Gobi before and had seen the desolate and desolate scene.

This time I came to the edge of the Taklimakan Desert, but I saw a different scenery. Looking around, there was an oasis with green grass on one side, and on the other side was a world of yellow sand that was rapidly becoming deserted and green was hard to find.

As the sun sets in the west, the rays are as bright as blood, adding a bit of mystery and loneliness to the boundless desert world in front of you. You can also vaguely see the roaring yellow sand storm in the distance, as if burning with blazing flames.

Looking at the towering sand mountains at different distances, as well as the distinct layers of sand dunes with smooth and smooth ridge lines, Ning Qingyun couldn't help but sigh in a low voice: "This is the great desert..."

As the only girl in the group, and a young and beautiful girl, Ning Qingyun's every move will always be the object of attention of the boys. At this time, someone smiled and answered: "Yes, Professor Ning,

This place is called the Kumtag Desert, which is part of the Taklimakan Desert and is also the desert closest to a city in the world. The city of Arada we drove out of just now is only more than 500 meters away from here in a straight line and is separated by a river."

The speaker who answered the call was a staff member of the Tazhong Meteorological Observation Station. His name was Wu Youwen. He was a very talkative young man and was a Han Chinese who had lived here since childhood.

Because it is getting late, everyone will rest outside the city here tonight, and will continue to rush to the meteorological observation and research station located deep in the desert tomorrow. Now Wu Youwen is leading everyone to familiarize themselves with the conditions of the desert in front of them.

Pointing to the desert in the distance, he introduced: "This place belonged to the Silk Road in the past and was known as the 'Great Ghost Moraine'. When Emperor Xuanzang of the Tang Dynasty took the Western Scriptures, he also passed through this place and suffered a lot. There are also many records here.

Related stories and legends.”

He pointed to the sand dunes farther away and said: "In that direction, about 20 kilometers away from here, it is said that there are some ruins of the ancient Loulan Kingdom, but unfortunately they have been completely covered by the yellow sand. But the old people often say that as long as you stand

If you close your eyes here, you can hear ancient songs."

Listening to Wu Youwen's introduction, academician Jiang Weixian and a few other people who were used to traveling around were fine. Qin Ke, Ning Qingjun, Deng Zhaoliang and other accompanying researchers who came here for the first time felt that the scenery in front of them was different.

It has an ancient and mysterious atmosphere.

Ning Qingyun, who had a literary and youthful air, closed her eyes and listened attentively for a while, then whispered to Qin Ke: "I seem to really hear the singing."

Qin Ke also heard it. It was actually the sound of wind passing through the sand dunes. He just had a preconceived impression, and his brain automatically added a third of his imagination, and it sounded vaguely like singing.

"Then do you want to take you to meet the prince of Gu Loulan?" Qin Ke said with a smile.

Ning Qingyun gave him a nice eye roll: "I think you want to meet the ghost of Gu Loulan's princess?"

"Even if there is a princess, she can't be more beautiful, cuter or smarter than my Jun'er." Qin Ke leaned close to the ear of the girl with a single ponytail and laughed softly.

Ning Qingyun's face turned a little red when his breath hit him, and she whispered back: "She's glib." As the girl spoke, she hugged Qin Ke's arm intimately.

Most of the people in front of her were acquaintances, and they knew her and Qin Ke's status as a couple, so although Ning Qingyun was shy, she didn't mind showing such intimacy.

And when standing on the edge of the desert, there is yellow sand under your feet, and the hot wind blows from the desert, making your skin feel dry and uncomfortable, and you feel a bit of awe of the vast 'Sea of ​​Death' in front of you.

, Ning Qingyun is no exception, and he naturally finds the most trustworthy support around him.

Some people saw the fight between the young couple, and some didn't pay attention, but they didn't say anything. Deng Zhaoliang was just envious in his heart, wishing he could have such a beautiful and lovely girlfriend.

He saw someone grazing sheep on the mottled grass in the distance, and asked curiously: "I heard that there are wild wolves on the edge of the desert, is it true?"

】

Wu Youwen shook his head and said: "More than twenty years ago, wild wolves could still be seen here. However, with the development of the city, the population has become denser, and the wild wolves have almost become extinct. The locals said that they have not heard the howl of wolves for a long time.

"

Qin Ke paid more attention to local crops and asked, "What are the main crops grown here?"

"On the other side of the river, because of the water source, the main food crops are sorghum and corn, and medicinal herbs such as wolfberry are also grown. The harvest is pretty good. But after crossing the river and approaching the desert, we can only grow some pasture.

." Wu Youwen pointed to the pasture where sheep were grazing in the distance and said:

"It was originally yellow sand. Ten years ago, a university professor led a team to study 'desert soilification'. They wanted the sand to acquire the characteristics of soil. They added 'plant fiber binders' extracted from plants to the sand.

After more than two years of hard work, the yellow sand was fixed in the soil, irrigated with water, and chemical fertilizers were applied. However, the research team left because the transformation cost was too high and could not be promoted.

After that, it was abandoned again. Later, someone contracted this land and used it to grow pasture, which is what you see now. However, due to the loss of fertility and secondary desertification of the soil, the pasture did not grow well."

Wu Youwen sighed as he spoke: "It is too difficult to fix and control sand. Just like where we are standing, it is said that it was once land a few decades ago, but then it became desertified and not even weeds grew."

Qin Ke squatted down and dug up the sand on the ground. It was almost all yellow sand, but if you dig deeper, you can still see some sticky soil.

He knew in his mind that in such land, the new desert sweet potato, which was currently not perfect, could grow and bear fruit only if it was supplemented with a special nutrient solution.

Qin Ke thought for a while and asked: "If there are food crops that can be grown in such deserted land, do you think anyone would be willing to plant them?"

Wu Youwen laughed dumbly: "Here? Even weeds can't grow here. Professor Qin, are you kidding me?"

Qin Ke smiled: "I just assumed."

"If there are such food crops, as long as the price is not outrageous, of course we will be willing to plant them. At least in this area, thousands of acres of more arable land will be available." Wu Youwen disagreed, obviously not believing that there is such a thing in the world.

Food crops grown.

However, Deng Zhaoliang remembered that Qin Ke and Ning Qingyun seemed to have studied crops and had patents for more than ten or twenty new seeds. In the past two years, they had caused a frenzy on the Internet for their new tomatoes. He couldn't help but ask curiously.

Said: "Junior Qin, you ask, are you studying desert crops?"

This question attracted everyone's attention. Even Academician Jiang Weixian, who was observing the distance with a telescope, turned around in surprise.

Qin Ke spread his hands: "That's right, but the current results are not satisfactory to us, so we have not announced them."

He didn't elaborate, so everyone just said "oh" thinking they understood and didn't ask any more questions.

There are countless biologists who want to study desert crops, but there have never been any successful examples. The impression that deserts are equivalent to "no grass grows" has long been ingrained. Even if Qin Ke is a great mathematician, he will not be able to solve such a difficult biological research topic.

.

Jiang Weixian frowned slightly. He was a disciple who was good at everything, but was a bit "careful" and never focused on a certain field. He sometimes studied mathematics, physics, and biology. I heard that he was still working with a physicist from Deguo on quantum research.

Research in computing.

If Qin Ke had focused all his energy on physics, he would have achieved far more achievements than he does now, right?

However, thinking that Qin Ke was a very independent person, Jiang Weixian did not mention this matter again.

Wu Youwen led everyone for about half an hour, then pointed in the distance and said: "This is the northwest direction. If you go along the road in this direction for about 250 kilometers, you can see our weather observation station."

Deng Zhaoliang was also here for the first time. He was surprised and said: "Two hundred and fifty kilometers? Is that the hinterland of the Taklimakan Desert?"

Wu Youwen said proudly: "Yes, our weather station is currently the only meteorological observation station in the world that goes more than 200 kilometers into the hinterland of the mobile desert. The temperature difference between day and night there exceeds 40 degrees Celsius, which is a national first-class difficult station, but our weather station

It has been nearly 30 years since its establishment. No matter how bad the conditions are, the staff have always stayed there in turns and carried out routine meteorological observations and atmospheric composition monitoring every day."

When he talked about this, the look on Wu Youwen's face was like the story of those heroic companies in the army who mentioned their numbers, with sacred pride.

In order to study the new type of desert sweet potato, Qin Ke also worked hard to study the geography and climate of the desert and consulted a large amount of information. Then he added with a smile:

"I have heard the name of this 'Taklamakan Desert Weather Station' for a long time. I heard that in the meteorological community, whenever the data on atmospheric environment evolution in desert areas, heat wave disasters, sand and dust weather research, desertification prevention and other fields are mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind is

'Taklamakan Desert Weather Station', if it were not for them to stick to their posts for thirty years and provide these precious scientific research data, many research fields on desert climate in our country would still be blank."

As the saying goes, everyone carries the sedan chair. Qin Ke's words of approval made Wu Youwen feel comfortable in his heart: "Professor Qin has won the award. This is our duty as scientific researchers. By the way, about this weather station.

Extreme weather suspected to be 'dry rain' has been observed. Have you all read the briefing?"

Hearing Wu Youwen talk about business, everyone became energetic.

This time, the "Taklimakan Desert Weather Station" invited Jiang Weixian's team to come because of this extreme weather suspected of being "dry rain".

The so-called "dry rain", also known as "phantom rain", refers to an extremely rare weather phenomenon in which it rains at high altitudes but does not rain at low altitudes.

Due to atmospheric circulation, there are occasional cold air flows over the desert, causing dark clouds to accumulate and rainfall. However, due to the extremely dry heat at low altitudes and strong evaporation, rising dry high-temperature airflows are formed. Raindrops falling from high altitudes quickly evaporate and disappear when encountering these airflows.

, it cannot fall to the ground at all, and the ground is still dry. This is also the reason for the name "dry rain".

Why is it called "suspected"? Because currently recorded "dry rain" has only occurred in the Sahara Desert, and has never been seen in other deserts in the world, including the Taklimakan Desert.

Whether this is a "dry rain" phenomenon, what causes it, and what the consequences will be... all need to be studied clearly.

Jiang Weixian is a true master of physics. He is not only an authoritative expert in fluid mechanics, but also has made great achievements in climate meteorology and weather prediction. In particular, he has studied fluid mechanics for a long time and is good at analyzing climate phenomena through fluid mechanics.

He is better than many famous climate meteorologists in studying extreme airflow weather.

This time, the "Taklimakan Desert Weather Station" invited several domestic expert teams on climate and meteorology to study the "dry rain" phenomenon. Naturally, Jiang Weixian's team will not be missed.

Jiang Weixian picked up the telescope and looked at it for a long time before replying: "This summer, the high temperature here may break the historical record. Just now I saw that the air in the distance has begun to distort due to the high temperature. This is above the surface of the earth."

The current phenomenon occurs when the volume of high-temperature dry air expands rapidly. The surface temperature is estimated to have exceeded 70 degrees Celsius. But today is only May 10th, and there are still two months before the scorching heat of July and August..."

He didn't continue, but everyone understood that it was already so hot in May, and by the "furnace" period of July and August, the Taklimakan Desert might become a veritable "Sea of ​​Fire."

Another postdoctoral fellow, Xu Jiaxing, who just graduated last year and joined Jiang Weixian's laboratory, asked aloud: "Brother Wu, I know that the precipitation in the Tarim River Basin last year reached the highest level in history. The superimposed high-temperature snowmelt effect caused a large area of ​​rare lakes to appear in the Taklimakan Desert.

What’s happening to these lakes these days?”

Wu Youwen said: "It's basically dried up. The desert cannot fix water. The accumulated water formed by heavy rains and natural leakage cannot penetrate deep into the interior of the desert. Under high temperature conditions, it quickly disappears in the form of evaporation, leakage, etc.

, now transformed back into dunes and basins.”

Xu Jiaxing pondered: "Will the evaporated water affect the climate of the Taklimakan Desert, leading to the phenomenon of 'dry rain' this year?"

Wu Youwen can't answer this question. He graduated only two years ago, has not much work experience, and is just an ordinary record-keeper. How can he answer such a professional climate question.

Jiang Wei first looked at Ning Qingyun: "Xiao Ning, what do you think?"

Ning Qingyun knew that the teacher was testing her. She thought carefully for a while before replying: "The 'lakes' in the Taklimakan Desert last year were mainly affected by the Tarim River and overflowed on both sides of the river to form temporary waters. This type of

The water body has a relatively small area and a short existence time, so it will basically not have an impact on the regional climate. Even if it does, it will be very slight and local and will not affect the hinterland of the desert."

In order to better study desert sweet potatoes, Ning Qingyun also asked Weiguang to help collect news events about deserts around the world and push them to her. Therefore, she had some knowledge of the news about the formation of a large number of "lakes" in the Taklimakan Desert last year, and combined it with the laboratory

With the knowledge I have accumulated over the past six months and the archives I have reviewed, it will not be difficult to answer such a question.

Jiang Weixian nodded with satisfaction: "Yes. This 'dry rain' should be caused by other reasons. As for the reason, we will naturally know it when we arrive at the weather station and get first-hand observation reports and data.

Okay, everyone go back and rest early, we will enter the desert tomorrow, and the journey is not easy."

At this moment, Wu Youwen's cell phone rang. After he answered the call, he was stunned. After a while, he said to everyone: "The weather station observed a suspected 'dry rain' phenomenon again. Just half an hour ago,

The location is about 20 kilometers away from the weather station..."

Everyone looked at each other, even Qin Ke frowned slightly.

The "dry rain" phenomenon, which was originally extremely rare in the Sahara Desert, appeared twice in a row in the hinterland of the Taklimakan Desert within a month.
Chapter completed!