Climate Change to Intensify Important African Weather Systems

Weather systems that bring rainstorms to many drought-prone areas of northern Africa, carry Saharan dust across the ocean, and seed Atlantic hurricanes could grow stronger as a result of human-caused climate change, a new analysis by Stanford scientists suggests.

Known as African easterly waves, or AEWs, these weather systems form above northern Africa during the summer season and travel east to west, toward the Atlantic Ocean.

"Not only are AEWs important for rainfall in West Africa, they also play a role in climate across the Atlantic, including here in the United States," said Noah Diffenbaugh, an associate professor of environmental Earth system science and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

Climate Change to Intensify Important African Weather Systems