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Variations in the strength of the North African Monsoon have been found to be strongly related to the stronger 23,000-year processional cycle. [ 2 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] The relationship between the precession cycle and the strength of the North African Monsoon exists because procession affects the amount of insolation received in a given hemisphere.
The African humid period was caused by a stronger West African Monsoon [125] directed by changes in solar irradiance and in albedo feedbacks. [17] These led to increased moisture import from both the equatorial Atlantic into West Africa, as well as from the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea towards the Mediterranean coasts of Africa. [126]
The major monsoon systems of the world consist of the West African, Asian–Australian, the North American, and South American monsoons. The term was first used in English in British India and neighboring countries to refer to the big seasonal winds blowing from the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea in the southwest bringing heavy rainfall to the area.
The climate of Africa is a range of climates such as the equatorial climate, the tropical wet and dry climate, the tropical monsoon climate, the semi-arid climate (semi-desert and steppe), the desert climate (hyper-arid and arid), the humid subtropical climate, and the subtropical highland climate. Temperate climates are rare across the ...
The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variations over the last few hundred thousand years, [49] oscillating between wet (grassland) and dry (desert) every 20,000 years [50] (a phenomenon believed to be caused by long-term changes in the North African climate cycle that alters the path of the North African Monsoon, caused by an ...
West African sediments additionally record the African humid period, an interval between 16,000 and 6,000 years ago during which Africa was much wetter than now. That was caused by a strengthening of the African monsoon by changes in summer radiation, which resulted from long-term variations in the Earth's orbit around the Sun.
The wet season (sometimes called the rainy season or monsoon season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. [1] Generally, the season lasts at least one month. [ 2 ]
The climate of the Sahara, for example, has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years, believed to be caused by long-term changes in the North African climate cycle that alters the path of the North African Monsoon. [5]