Tipping Points: Understanding the Collapse of the Green Sahara

Sudden changes in complex systems such as the Earth's climate system are extremely difficult to predict. Researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) have now succeeded in developing a new method to predict such tipping points in advance.

They successfully tested the reliability of their method using one of the most severe sudden climate changes of the past: the shift of the once green Sahara to desert.

From the last Ice Age until about 6,000 years ago, the area now known as the Sahara Desert was a lush, green landscape teeming with life. This "African wet season" came to an abrupt end, turning this prosperous region into the dry land we see today. Technical (University of Munich, more at phys.org)