Sahel drought
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The Sahel drought from the late 1960s to early 1980s created a famine that killed a million people and afflicted more than 50 million. The economies, agriculture, livestock and human populations of much of Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso (known as Upper Volta during the time of the drought) were severely impacted.
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[edit] Potential factors contributing to Sahel drought
Originally it was believed that the drought in the Sahel primarily was caused by humans over-using natural resources in the region through overgrazing, deforestation and poor land management.
In the late 1990s, climate model studies suggested that the drought was not only caused by humans, but also by natural large scale climate changes.
In the early 2000s, after the phenomenon of global dimming was discovered, some speculatively suggested that the drought was likely caused by air pollution generated in Europe and North America. The pollution changed the properties of clouds over the Atlantic ocean, disturbing the monsoons and shifting the tropical rains southwards.
In 2005, a series of climate modeling studies performed at NOAA / Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory indicated that the late 20th century Sahel drought was likely a climatic response to changing sea surface temperature patterns, and that it could be viewed as a combination of natural variability superimposed upon an anthropogenically forced regional drying trend.[1]. These climate model simulations indicated that the general late 20th century Sahel drying trend was attributable to human-induced factors; largely due to an increase in greenhouse gases and partly due to an increase in atmospheric aerosols. These climate change modeling studies also project that human-induced climate change could lead to a 25% reduction in Sahel rainfall by year 2100.
[edit] United Nations Sahel drought response
In 1973, The United Nations Sahelian Office (UNSO) was created to address the problems of drought in the Sahel region following the West African Sahel drought of 1968-73. In the 1990s, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was adopted and UNSO became the United Nations Development Programme's Office to Combat Desertification and Drought, as its scope broadened to be global rather than only focused on Africa.[2]
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification home page
- Climate research summary -Sahel drought: past problems, an uncertain future Text, graphics and animations from NOAA / Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
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