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Hydrology

Climate change comes to the Sahel

Persistent drought in the Sahel in the 1970s and 1980s was caused by subtle changes in global sea surface temperatures. Now model results show that the direct effect of increasing greenhouse-gas concentrations led to the subsequent recovery.

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Figure 1: Sahel precipitation anomalies (10–20° N, 20° W–40° E) for 1979–2008.

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Correspondence to Alessandra Giannini.

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Giannini, A. Climate change comes to the Sahel. Nature Clim Change 5, 720–721 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2739

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