Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Space technology investigates large-scale changes to Africa's climate

http://www.brightsurf.com/news/headlines/106847/Space_technology_investigates_large-scale_changes_to_Africas_climate_.html

An international research team led by the University of Leicester has mapped the entire African continent south of the Sahara for geographical changes - and has discovered that many areas receive drastically different amounts of rainfall today compared to just ten years ago.

The study, which investigated the rainfall and greenness of plants in African regions using satellite mapping technology, suggests that areas such as the Congo, Nigeria and Madagascar now receive far less rainfall than they did a decade ago, while other locations such as the Sahel zone have become far greener through increased rainfall.

Together with the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, the Institute of Electromagnetic Sensing of Environment of the National Research Council of Italy, and the Polish Institute of Geodesy and Cartography, the study analysed 10 years of satellite data.

Professor Heiko Balzter, Director of the Centre for Landscape and Climate Research at the University of Leicester and co-author of the study, said: "We looked at the satellite data and discovered a number of surprising hotspots of change. Some parts of the Congo, Nigeria and Madagascar appear to receive much less rainfall now compared to 10 years ago. This is an issue even in the wet tropics of the Congo, where low rainfall means restrictions to ship movements on the rivers there, which are the main transport routes in the dense jungle

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