Earthsky Interviews
Private: Wetter climate predicted for African Sahel
03-11-2006 - Human World
_DB: Drought in Africa created widespread famine that, since the 1970s, has killed more than a million people. Scientists have struggled to explain the drought. They’ve considered natural climate change and looked at human over-use of resources:_ overgrazing, deforestation, poor land management. They’ve considered at air pollution from Europe and North America. Could this pollution be changing the properties of clouds over the Atlantic. Could it be disturbing the monsoons and shifting the rains to the south?
_JB:_ ” Martin Hoerling “:http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/martin.hoerling/ is a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. He studies Africa’s Sahel, using computer modelling. The current theories on drought in the Sahel center on the North and South Atlantic Oceans, whose surface temperatures are known to be rising due to global warming. The work of Hoerling and others indicates a slight increase in precipitation in the Sahel over the coming century.
_Martin Hoerling:_ We would expect that there should be a wettening, if you will, of the Sahel. And indeed one does see that happen in the majority of the 20 models that have been used to predict the 21st century climate.
_DB:_ But, according to Hoerling . . .
_Martin Hoerling:_ These models aren’t perfect. So there’s limitations to these models to say the least.
_JB:_ More at earthsky.org. Our thanks today to NOAA. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth & Sky.
“Drought in the Sahel, from the Earth Institute at Columbia University”:http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/crosscutting/cci/DroughtintheSahel.htm