Study Reveals Extent and Impact of Climate Change on Tropical Mountains
Written by AZoCleantechMar 15 2021
The tropics are known to drive atmospheric and ocean circulation in the world, and hence have a crucial role to play in interpreting both the past and upcoming climate change.
The up to 200-m long, 15-m wide, and 2-m deep sorted stone strips on the southern Sanetti Plateau (ca. 3,900 m a.s.l.) were probably formed during the last glacial period under much cooler conditions and can best be explained by a natural sorting of the stones in the course of the cyclic freezing and thawing of the ground. Image Credit: Heinz Veit.
E-Mail
IMAGE: The up to 200 m long, 15 m wide and 2 m deep sorted stone strips on the southern Sanetti Plateau (ca. 3,900 m a.s.l.) were probably formed during the. view more
Credit: Heinz Veit
As the driver of global atmospheric and ocean circulation, the tropics play a central role in understanding past and future climate change. Both global climate simulations and worldwide ocean temperature reconstructions indicate that the cooling in the tropics during the last cold period, which began about 115,000 years ago, was much weaker than in the temperate zone and the polar regions. The extent to which this general statement also applies to the tropical high mountains of Eastern Africa and elsewhere is, however, doubted on the basis of palaeoclimatic, geological and ecological studies at high elevations.