With ice sheets evidently on the move in the Arctic and Antarctic - in
terms of moving from one area to another - it occured to me on the way
into work today that surely deserts must do the same and there must be
accounts from subsistence farmers in the central African basin with
accounts that...
"The Sahara desert used to start here - now this area is well
irrigated and is being reclaimed by the savannah / jungle - the desert
is now three miles further north..."
During some research I came up with this very interesting ...
Here is an extract from the article...
"Historical climate research indicates that climate change does not
follow a pattern that people seem to expect (the climate always
gradually and slowly changing over the course of a long time). Rather,
the evidence indicates that the planet can suddenly flip from one
climatic condition to a new equilibrium in about ten years. (so then
climate change can be said to resemble the flipping of the earth's
magnetic poles, which also takes place abruptly). What this suggests
is that climate change only requires that the ecosystem reach
'critical mass' and then the 'climate flips' and the world reaches a
new equilibrium and a new climatic state prevails.
The accumulating evidence I have been gathering suggests that this
process is now underway. Research indicates that enough CO2 has been
released into the atmosphere over the last century to raise the global
temperature between one and two degrees. The result is that the
climate is now unstable, and therefore we are in the midst of one of
those sudden decade long climate shifts. In fact, given the increasing
tempo of change taking place on the Sahara (the signal environment) we
are actually coming up to the end of this ten year period, and in the
immediate future the climate will become stable in new equilibrium."
You'll find the full text at...
http://southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/4551.php
Very off topic in terms of UK weather - but I wondered if anybody has
any comments on this.
Cheers,
Scott Whitehead