Zud

A Zud (Template:Lang-mn) is a Mongolian term for an extremely cold winter, which almost always includes a blizzard and a lot of snow. It usually occurs after an especially hot summer.

The term is usually distinguished from other relatively warmer winter because considerable number of nomads' herd and peoples lives are lost. It is not uncommon for Zuds to kill over one million livestock in a single incident, with probably one of the record livestock casualty was in 1944 when it took almost 7 million livestock in a single winter.

Background

A temperature of zud can go down to -50°C (minus 58°F). They usually happen once or twice a year. People are killed every year in these cold conditions, usually as a result of trying to protect their livestock outside by trying to herd them into safer locations like the base of a mountain or herding them longer distances to find them better grazing. The greatest impact a Zud will have is on the animals, since not a lot of people perish, butthe death of their animals can cause hardship on many that depended on their herd for years and are basically left with nothing if all of their livestock die. The thing that also makes zud deadly is because of the steppe where there are no mountains, which results in very strong cold and icy winds.

The ground can become frozen so hard that animals cannot graze and water cannot be easily extracted. Although Mongolia is a country with a continental climate and low precipitation, occasionally freak and extreme snowfalls can cause herd animals to drown in the snow. The Mongolian government acts when condition permits during zud particularly to protect people's herd by dropping bundle of grasses to the animals as people are usually save in the yurt; however the government resources are not always enough to help everyone because some of the nomads live in quite remote locations away from city/town centers where the planes/helicopters are deployed.

The natives sometimes further differentiate between a black, a white, and an iron/ice zud. The black zud is caused by sparse food in summer and a cold winter in which many animals die of starvation. The white zud is caused by very heavy snow fall, which makes it impossible for the livestock to feed on the otherwise accessible frozen grass, hence they too starve. The iron/ice zud is brought about by rain which freezes and covers the land in ice hindering the animals from feeding on any grass or herbs.

References

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/694716.stm
• http://www.mercycorps.org/countries/mongolia/54
• http://reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/OCHA-64DGS8?OpenDocument
• http://www.jst.go.jp/astf/document2/en_33doc.pdf
• http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VPPDGS