Tibetan PlateauLess snow here dries South Asia and wets Africa.
The two monsoons sustain billions of people and set water supply, irrigation and flood risk.
Reduced snow enhances heating, which speeds the tropical easterly jet and carries moisture toward tropical Africa, the model runs show.
Since 2006, snow extent has stayed below 9%, the threshold past which the snow-jet link weakens substantially.
The authors say continued warming and snow loss leave future Afro-Asian monsoon projections uncertain.
How each outlet framed it
- Nature
- traces the dipole to Tibetan snow heating and an accelerated tropical easterly jet; snow below 9% since 2006
Sources: Nature