Long term context for recent drought in northwestern Africa

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Abstract

Anthropogenic climate change is projected to exacerbate midlatitude aridity. Here, we analyze newly developed multi-century tree-ring records for a long-term perspective on drought in Tunisia and Algeria. We use a new set of 13 Cedrus adantica and Pinus halepensis chronologies with a strong signal for warm-season drought (May-August) to generate a robust, well-validated reconstruction of the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) for the period AD 1456-2002. Key features of the reconstruction reveal the magnitude of pre-instrumental droughts from the historic record. Remarkably, the most recent drought (1999-2002) appears to be the worst since at least the middle of the 15th century. This drought is consistent with the early signature of a transition to more and midlatitude conditions, as projected by general circulation models. Copyright 2008 by the American Geophysical Union.

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Touchan, R., Anchukaitis, K. J., Meko, D. M., Attalah, S., Baisan, C., & Aloui, A. (2008). Long term context for recent drought in northwestern Africa. Geophysical Research Letters, 35(13). https://doi.org/10.1029/2008GL034264

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