Widening tropics 'will drive deserts into Europe'

[seafan]

Widening tropics 'will drive deserts into Europe'

By Geoffrey Lean
04 June 2006

The world's tropical zones are growing, threatening to drive the world's great deserts into southern Europe and other heavily populated areas, alarming new research suggests.
The study - based on satellite measurements over the past quarter of a century - shows that the tropics have widened by 140 miles since 1979. Scientists suspect that global warming is to blame.

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The zones immediately outside the tropics are often very dry - containing many of the world's great deserts - and these are also expected to move towards the poles as part of the tropical shift.

The scientists believe that this may explain the recent droughts in southern Europe and the south-western United States. They say that if the process continues it could move the deserts into heavily populated areas, with devastating results.

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Two new studies last week confirmed research which indicated that rising sea temperatures, caused by global warming, are increasing the strength of hurricanes. On Wednesday Jeb Bush - the Governor of Florida and the brother of the President - met some of the scientists who had conducted the research, saying that he found their information "compelling"

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(emphasis added)


Does this make everyone feel sooooo much better?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. The Brothers Dim.

Jebby has a really enormous, puffy head. And it appears that liplessness runs in the family. That's some really defective DNA.

[msongs]

2. must mean the wet tropics are also expanding into current deserts

so sub saharan africa should become wetter. that will be good news for them. desert australia should also get wetter.

msongs
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