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As little as 6,000 years ago, the vast Sahara Desert was covered in grassland that received plenty of rainfall, but shifts in the world's weather patterns abruptly transformed the vegetated region into some of the driest land on Earth. A Texas A&M university researcher is trying to uncover the clues responsible for this enormous climate transformation – and the findings could lead to better rainfall predictions worldwide.
Robert Korty, associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, along with colleague William Boos of Yale University, have had their work published in the current issue of Nature Geoscience.
The two researchers have looked into precipitation patterns of the Holocene era and compared them with present-day movements of the intertropical convergence zone, a large region of intense tropical rainfall. Using computer models and other data, the researchers found links to rainfall patterns thousands of years ago.
"The framework we developed helps us understand why the heaviest tropical rain belts set up where they do," Korty explains.
"Tropical rain belts are tied to what happens elsewhere in the world through the Hadley circulation, but it won't predict changes elsewhere directly, as the chain of events is very complex. But it is a step toward that goal."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @06:52AM
maybe imagine a oil guzzeling society that needs fuel to fertilize crops,
build housing, transport, build places of worship, cook food and then they also
use the same fuel for housing and tools.
now replace above "oil" with "wood" and imagine how the lush sahara
forests were bleed dry and then how the gazillion missing photosynthesizing
organisms stopped retaining water with small shades called leafs,
making oxygen, perspiring water, cooling the air ... making the weather.
voila, crazy idea .. the ancient egyptians made the sahara by chopping down the
forest?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @07:03AM
hey! maybe we can get kevin costner from rapa-nui to play a
a agyptian aristocrat-philosopher that sees the warning signs when the desert
starts to encroach on his egypten summer retreat far from the london-smog-like
cairo?
maybe we can make a popular multi-part plot were he then is reborn in china and sees
the semi ancient chinese chop down huge old trees to build their famous world
circumventing "treasure fleet" as captain sinbao-o with his warnings
coming true after the weather becomes violent because of missing trees
and lighning strikes the throne of the chinese emperor and the subsequent ejection
of the emperor because of these bad omens leading to china once again retreating into its
now treeless self? ^_^
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 03 2016, @11:04AM
I've always blamed the Ethiopians, but, at this point, what difference does it make?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @07:08PM
Lol, no. The process of desertification started about 6000BC [sciencedaily.com]. The oldest signs of bronzemaking in the fertile crescent is about 4500BC and much later (3000BC) in Egypt.
People without metal tools don't clear cut forests.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday December 03 2016, @08:08PM
No, but goats *do* kill forests by eating the young trees. However the summary said it was grassland, and that lets out the wood burning civilization theory as well as "the goats ate the forest".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.