Hodnebrog, O, Myhre, G, Forster, PM orcid.org/0000-0002-6078-0171 et al. (2 more authors) (2016) Local biomass burning is a dominant cause of the observed precipitation reduction in southern Africa. Nature Communications, 7. 11236. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
Observations indicate a precipitation decline over large parts of southern Africa since the 1950s. Concurrently, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols have increased due to anthropogenic activities. Here we show that local black carbon and organic carbon aerosol emissions from biomass burning activities are a main cause of the observed decline in southern African dry season precipitation over the last century. Near the main biomass burning regions, global and regional modelling indicates precipitation decreases of 20–30%, with large spatial variability. Increasing global CO2 concentrations further contribute to precipitation reductions, somewhat less in magnitude but covering a larger area. Whereas precipitation changes from increased CO2 are driven by large-scale circulation changes, the increase in biomass burning aerosols causes local drying of the atmosphere. This study illustrates that reducing local biomass burning aerosol emissions may be a useful way to mitigate reduced rainfall in the region.
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Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016, The Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 17 Aug 2016 11:38 |
Last Modified: | 17 Aug 2016 11:38 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11236 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/ncomms11236 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:99889 |
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