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A unifying view of climate change in the Sahel linking intra-seasonal, interannual and longer time scales
Open accessAbstract
We propose a re-interpretation of the oceanic influence on the climate of the African Sahel that is consistent across observations, 20th century simulations and 21st century projections, and that resolves the uncertainty in projections of precipitation change in this region: continued warming of the global tropical oceans increases the threshold for convection, potentially drying tropical land, but this 'upped ante' can be met if sufficient moisture is supplied in monsoon flow. In this framework, the reversal to warming of the subtropical North Atlantic, which is now out-pacing warming of the global tropical oceans, provides that moisture, and explains the partial recovery in precipitation since persistent drought in the 1970s and 1980s. We find this recovery to result from increases in daily rainfall intensity, rather than in frequency, most evidently so in Senegal, the westernmost among the three Sahelian countries analyzed. Continuation of these observed trends is consistent with projections for an overall wetter Sahel, but more variable precipitation on all time scales, from intra-seasonal to multi-decadal.
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“Smallholder rainfed agriculture and herding are becoming increasingly difficult due to unpredictable availability of water and in some locations expansion of the Sahara Desert [23, 61, 62].”
From Climate Change, Migration, and Civil Strife. (2020) · cites this paper as [23]
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“The 2013 IPCC report forecasts that, by the late twenty-first century, intense heat and dryness will affect countries extending across North Africa into Egypt and Sudan and northeast to Saudi Arabia, the Levant including Syria, Iraq, and Iran [20], to parts of India and China in Asia, and across the Southern United States and Mexico [21–23].”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Giannini, A., Salack, S., Lodoun, T., Ali, A., Gaye, A. T., & Ndiaye, O.
- Affiliations
- Columbia University (US)
- Centre d'Etude Regional pour l'Amelioration de l'Adaptation a la Secheresse (SN)
- Institut de l'Environnement et Recherches Agricoles (BF)
- Agrhymet Regional Centre (NE)
- Cheikh Anta Diop University (SN)
- Agence Nationale de l'Aviation Civile et de la Météorologie (SN)
- Venue
- Environmental Research Letters
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2013-04-18
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 024010
- ISSN
- 1748-9326 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2151415557
- Cited by
- 178
- References
- 58
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 31 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 11.39
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Environmental Research Letters (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Greater South Information System
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0955372)
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NA08OAR4320754)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Hydrology and Drought Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
- Keywords
- Sahel climate, rainfall variability, ocean-atmosphere interaction, North Atlantic warming, tropical ocean warming, rainfall intensity, precipitation projections, intraseasonal variability, interannual variability, multidecadal variability, Senegal
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