A University of California, Irvine-led team reveals a clear link between human-driven climate change and the years-long drought currently gripping southern Madagascar.
A University of California, Irvine-led team reveals a clear link between human-driven climate change and the years-long drought currently gripping southern Madagascar. Their study appears in the Nature journal Climate and Atmospheric Science.
“Using remotely sensed observations and climate models, we could see evidence that climate change is affecting the hydrological cycle in southern Madagascar, and it’s likely going to have big implications for the people that live there and how they grow their food,” said Angela Rigden, assistant professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine and study lead author. “Their rainy season is getting shorter, with a delayed onset of those seasons.”
What helped the Rigden team make the connection between the drought and climate change was a multi-year satellite record of vegetation greenness which shows shifts in southern Madagascar that indicate changes in water availability. “We’ve taken satellite-based remote sensing data of plants and related it to how much water is available in the soils,” she said.
Read more at: University of California - Irvine
Villagers in southwestern Madagascar collect fresh water from an aquifer near a small lake. Drought has caused regular sources of water to become less reliable in this region. (Photo Credit: Christopher Golden / Harvard University)
