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Paper in Nature on 21st century dune system responses to global warming receives major international media coverage
Aerial view of the Kalahari
Dune activity 2070 - Click on above image to enlarge.
Research by David Thomas and Giles Wiggs and their former PhD student Melanie Knight published in Nature volume 345 on 30 June has attracted major media coverage including BBC radio and TV, and in print in the Guardian, Daily Telegraph and syndicated worldwide by Associated Press. The study uses climate data from GCMs to drive a specially developed dune mobility index in order to predict the 21st century dynamics of the extensive presently-vegetated dunefields in southern Africa. The index determines monthly values of surface erodability and erosivity and was calibrated using a range of dune surface states during the last 20 years. Outputs postulate that dune systems that were last active region-wide 14-16,000 ka ago could reactivate significantly in the 21st century, from northern South Africa northwards to western Zambia and southern Angola. This has significant implications for agriculture in central southern Africa.
The paper can be accessed on the Nature website.
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