Abstract
The climate of Kazakhstan has changed significantly during the Quaternary period. This affected the periodic flooding or desiccation of the territory, traces of which have been preserved in the relief to this day. Focus on climate change in the historical era (2000‒3000 years) it caused various opinions and disputes. According to some researchers, over the past 2000‒3000 years, the climate has become more humid than in the preceding postglacial period. Although small intra-century cycles of fluctuations in lake levels indicate periodic humidification of the climate, the general course of the centuries-old cycle is now directed towards decreasing humidity. Consequently, the drying of the territory of Kazakhstan will reach a maximum in 2600‒2700, after which the climate will change towards humidification. The increase in moisture levels from 1952-1953 was reflected in the rise in lake levels, increased river flows, and the onset of glaciers, which is the result of an intrasecular rhythm of moisture variability against the background of large, centuries-old rhythms. Research shows that in Kazakhstan, during the Quaternary, there was an alternation of pluvial and xerothermal epochs, but the type of modern relief-forming processes is more consistent with xerothermal epochs. This is evi[1]denced by a reduction in runoff along the valleys, a partial transition of concentrated runoff to a flat one, a reduction in the water area of lakes, the presence of abandoned irrigation ditch systems far from the modern water channel, and the death of tributaries of the right bank of the Yertys River at the level of the modern floodplain. At the present stage, climate aridization has affected the hydrographic network of Central Kazakhstan.