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Atmospheric science

A man-made drought

The causes of the severe drought in the Sahel in the 1970s and 1980s are uncertain. Now a study provides the firmest evidence so far that emissions of aerosols from industrialized countries played a significant role, but other forcings cannot be ruled out yet.

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Figure 1: Causes of the twentieth-century drying trend in the Sahel.

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Correspondence to Michela Biasutti.

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Biasutti, M. A man-made drought. Nature Clim Change 1, 197–198 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1151

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