Redorbit.com - 9/24/13
A new study from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory reveals that a northward shift of Earth’s wind and rain belts could make a broad swath of regions drier. The findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that these drier regions include the Middle East, American West and Amazonia, while Monsoon Asia and equatorial Africa will become wetter as humans continue to heat the planet.
This new prediction is based on the warming that ended the last ice age around 15,000 years ago. During that warming, the North Atlantic Ocean began to churn more vigorously, melting Arctic sea ice, and setting up a temperature contrast with the southern hemisphere where sea ice was expanding around Antarctica. The tropical rain belt and mid-latitude jet stream were pushed north by the temperature gradient between the poles. This redistributed water in two bands around the planet.
