Drought in the Sahara - A biogeophysical feedback mechanism
Abstract
Two integrations of a global general circulation model, differing only in the prescribed surface albedo in the Sahara, show that an increase in albedo resulting from a decrease in plant cover causes a decrease in rainfall. Thus any tendency for plant cover to decrease would be reinforced by a decrease in rainfall, and could initiate or perpetuate a drought.
- Publication:
-
Science
- Pub Date:
- February 1975
- DOI:
- Bibcode:
- 1975Sci...187..434C
- Keywords:
-
- Deserts;
- Drought;
- Earth Albedo;
- Ecology;
- Plants (Botany);
- Precipitation (Meteorology);
- Africa;
- Atmospheric Models;
- Biological Effects;
- Climate;
- Geophysics;
- Rain;
- Surface Properties;
- Geophysics