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    Non-linear intensification of Sahel rainfall as a possible dynamic response to future warming
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2017) Schewe, Jacob; Levermann, Anders
    Projections of the response of Sahel rainfall to future global warming diverge significantly. Meanwhile, paleoclimatic records suggest that Sahel rainfall is capable of abrupt transitions in response to gradual forcing. Here we present climate modeling evidence for the possibility of an abrupt intensification of Sahel rainfall under future climate change. Analyzing 30 coupled global climate model simulations, we identify seven models where central Sahel rainfall increases by 40 to 300% over the 21st century, owing to a northward expansion of the West African monsoon domain. Rainfall in these models is non-linearly related to sea surface temperature (SST) in the tropical Atlantic and Mediterranean moisture source regions, intensifying abruptly beyond a certain SST warming level. We argue that this behavior is consistent with a self-amplifying dynamic–thermodynamical feedback, implying that the gradual increase in oceanic moisture availability under warming could trigger a sudden intensification of monsoon rainfall far inland of today's core monsoon region.
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    Hysteresis of tropical forests in the 21st century
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2020) Staal, Arie; Fetzer, Ingo; Wang-Erlandsson, Lan; Bosmans, Joyce H. C.; Dekker, Stefan C.; van Nes, Egbert H.; Rockström, Johan; Tuinenburg, Obbe A.
    Tropical forests modify the conditions they depend on through feedbacks at different spatial scales. These feedbacks shape the hysteresis (history-dependence) of tropical forests, thus controlling their resilience to deforestation and response to climate change. Here, we determine the emergent hysteresis from local-scale tipping points and regional-scale forest-rainfall feedbacks across the tropics under the recent climate and a severe climate-change scenario. By integrating remote sensing, a global hydrological model, and detailed atmospheric moisture tracking simulations, we find that forest-rainfall feedback expands the geographic range of possible forest distributions, especially in the Amazon. The Amazon forest could partially recover from complete deforestation, but may lose that resilience later this century. The Congo forest currently lacks resilience, but is predicted to gain it under climate change, whereas forests in Australasia are resilient under both current and future climates. Our results show how tropical forests shape their own distributions and create the climatic conditions that enable them.