Central Asia includes five former Soviet republics – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Sometimes it includes Afghanistan, western China, and parts of other neighboring nations.

Due to its semi-arid conditions and potential impacts, Hu and Han wanted to determine if the region had any climate shifts. They found that the average annual temperature in Central Asia has increased by roughly nine degrees Fahrenheit when comparing the decades from 1960-1980 to decades from 1990-2020.