All Articles Tagged As: africa

East Africa's climate under the spell of El Niño since the last Ice Age (8/9/2011)

The current severe drought in East Africa is being attributed to La Niña conditions that prevailed in the Pacific until May 2011. The waxing and waning of rainfall in eastern tropical Africa in unison with El Niño-Southern Oscillation is not unusual and existed already 20,000 years ago, though the region's last 3,000 years have seen a less stable climate, according to a study published by an international group of scientists on August 5 in Science. ...> Full Article

6 million years of savanna (8/6/2011)

University of Utah scientists used chemical isotopes in ancient soil to measure prehistoric tree cover ? in effect, shade -- and found that grassy, tree-dotted savannas prevailed at most East African sites where human ancestors and their ape relatives evolved during the past 6 million years. ...> Full Article

The world's oldest water? (2/27/2011)

New evidence bolsters the notion that deep saline groundwaters in South Africa's Witwatersrand Basin may have remained isolated for many thousands, perhaps even millions, of years. The study, recently accepted for publication in Chemical Geology, found the noble gas neon dissolved in water in three-kilometre deep crevices. ...> Full Article

20th century one of driest in 9 centuries for northwest Africa (5/31/2010)

Droughts in the late 20th century rival some of North Africa's major droughts of centuries past, reveals new research that peers back in time to the year 1179. The first multicentury drought reconstruction that includes Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia shows frequent and severe droughts during the 13th and 16th centuries and the latter part of the 20th century. An international team led by a University of Arizona researcher developed the tree-ring-based drought history. ...> Full Article

Geologists show unprecedented warming in Lake Tanganyika (5/20/2010)

Geologists led by Brown University have documented that Lake Tanganyika in east Africa has experienced unprecedented warming in the last century. Using core samples obtained from the lake bed, the team determined the lake is currently the warmest it has been in the last 1,500 years. The warming likely is affecting the valuable fish stocks upon which millions of people depend. Results appear in Nature Geoscience. ...> Full Article

Early life on Earth may have developed more quickly than thought (11/16/2009)

The Earth's climate was far cooler -- perhaps more than 50 degrees -- billions of years ago, which could mean conditions for life all over the planet were more conducive than previously believed, according to a research team that includes a Texas A&M University expert who specializes in geobiology. ...> Full Article

Central Africa's tropical Congo Basin was arid, treeless in Late Jurassic (11/11/2009)

The lush, tropical Congo Basin was much different 150 million to 200 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed Gondwana, the single continent formed by Africa and South America. Geochemical analysis of rare ancient soils from Central Africa suggests the land was arid, with a small amount of seasonal rainfall, and few bushes or trees. There's very little data for the paleoclimate of the Late Jurassic, but it's important because climate determines plant communities. ...> Full Article

Snows of Kilimanjaro shrinking rapidly, and likely to be lost (11/8/2009)

The remaining ice fields atop famed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania could be gone within two decades and perhaps even sooner, based on the latest survey of the ice fields remaining on the mountain. The findings indicate a major cause of this ice loss is very likely to be the rise in global temperatures. Although changes in cloudiness and precipitation may also play a role, they appear less important, particularly in recent decades. ...> Full Article

African desert rift confirmed as new ocean in the making (11/6/2009)

In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial.Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world's oceans. ...> Full Article

Ancient drought and rapid cooling drastically altered climate (6/22/2009)

Two abrupt and drastic climate events, 700 years apart and more than 45 centuries ago, are teasing scientists who are now trying to use ancient records to predict future world climate. The events -- one, a massive, long-lived drought believed to have dried large portions of Africa and Asia, and the other, a rapid cooling that accelerated the growth of tropical glaciers -- left signals in ice cores and other geologic records from around the world. ...> Full Article

Megadroughts in sub-Saharan Africa normal for the region (4/17/2009)

Devastating droughts worse than the infamous Sahel drought are part of the normal climate regime for sub-Saharan West Africa, according to new research. Scientists have developed the first almost year-by-year record of the last 3,000 years of West Africa's climate. In that period, catastrophic droughts occurred every 30 to 65 years, and the pattern can be expected to continue in the future, the team reports in the April 17 issue of the journal Science. ...> Full Article

Fledgling mantle plume may be cause of African volcano's unique lava (3/14/2009)

Nyiragongo, an active African volcano, possesses lava unlike any other in the world, which may point toward its source being a new mantle plume says a University of Rochester geochemist. The lava composition indicates that a mantle plume -- an upwelling of intense heat from near the core of the Earth -- may be bubbling to life beneath the soil of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The findings are presented in the current issue of the journal Chemical Geology. ...> Full Article

Satellites help locate water in Niger (1/22/2009)

Like most sub-Saharan African countries, Niger faces problems meeting its water needs. As part of ESA's TIGER initiative, satellite data are being used to identify underground water resources in the drought-prone country. ...> Full Article

The green Sahara, a desert in bloom (10/1/2008)

New North African climate reconstructions reveal three 'green Sahara' episodes during which the present-day Sahara Desert was almost completely covered with extensive grasslands, lakes and ponds over the course of the last 120.000 years. ...> Full Article

Research team proposes new link to tropical African climate (9/15/2008)

Scientists have discovered the Intertropical Convergence Zone may not be the key to southeast Africa's climate after all ...> Full Article

NASA data show some African drought linked to warmer Indian Ocean (8/8/2008)

A new study, co-funded by NASA, has identified a link between a warming Indian Ocean and less rainfall in eastern and southern Africa. Computer models and observations show a decline in rainfall, with implications for the region's food security. ...> Full Article

Do Hydroelectric Dams Pose A New Threat To Lake Victoria? (2/4/2008)

Two hydroelectricity dams appear to be threatening the health of Lake Victoria -- and of the people living along its shores who depend on the lake for food. A new study¹ suggests that the dams' systematic overuse of water has decreased the lake level by at least two meters between 2000 and 2006 -- and that this drop was not influenced by weather. ...> Full Article

Giant submarine landslide identified (11/24/2007)

An enormous submarine landslide that disintegrated 60,000 years ago produced the longest flow of sand and mud yet documented on Earth. The massive submarine flow travelled 1,500 kilometres - the distance from London to Rome - before depositing its load. ...> Full Article