Event

In the coming century the world’s high tropical mountains are predicted to experience a magnitude of climate warming second only to the Arctic.  This occurs due to changes in the lapse rate- the gradients of temperature change with elevation.  Existing temperature and glaciological reconstructions suggest substantial changes in the lapse rate in the past, but these records remain highly controversial due to uncertainties in the interpretation of temperature from snowline depression.  This talk will present new reconstructions of temperature and glacier status from tropical Africa to evaluate the sensitivity of tropical mountains to past and future climate change.