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Ocean Changes Linked To Climate Change
Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings over the Atlantic affect rains in Africa? Probably not, but Dr. Ping Chang, professor of oceanography and atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, and his co-researchers hypothesize that an oceanic mechanism might link abrupt climate changes in the high-latitude North Atlantic to climate changes in the tropics – in particular, Africa.
The team has used a past climate event as a key to understanding the oceanic role. The Younger Dryas — a cold episode that occurred around 11,000 years ago — was marked by abrupt changes in the African monsoon. And Chang’s study provides details about conditions that might have caused these abrupt climate changes in Africa.