African Monsoon Study (IMAGE)

University of Texas at Austin

African Monsoon Study

Caption

The modern climatology of West Africa is displayed using instrumental data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, left, and the climate model, right. Both show the seasonal cycle of precipitation changes associated with the northward progression of the monsoon, but the model does not fully simulate the mid-summer dry season. The authors hypothesize that seasonality drives the delay in late African Humid Period drying in equatorial West Africa. For their study, the scientists used the chemical composition of leaf waxes preserved in sediments from Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana, to create a reconstruction of precipitation in humid tropical West Africa for the past 20,000 years.

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Shanahan, et al

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