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Climatic Dance
Tue Apr 08, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
When it's balmy in Bermuda, does that mean Delhi is getting drenched? Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for
The Weather Notebook's weekly segment on global climate change.
There's a long-distance link between the North Atlantic Ocean, and the monsoon that hits Asia
each summer. The monsoon affects life for more than a billion people from India to China.
Too little rain there could mean famine. Too much rain means deadly flooding. But what does
all this rain have to do with the faraway Atlantic?
It turns out that a warm winter across the North Atlantic helps make for a stronger monsoon
the following summer in Asia. Scientists think the connection is snow, or the lack of it.
When the North Atlantic runs warm, then winters tend to be less snowy eastward across parts of
Europe and Asia. The less Asian snow there is to melt in the spring, the faster the monsoon
can get cranked up.
Previous researchers found a climate change link from studying the last ice age. Now a team
from India and the U.S. has found a similar link for two more recent climate shifts. They
found a stronger monsoon during the Medieval Warm Period, about a thousand years ago. That's
when the Atlantic was so mild that Vikings could cross over and set up shop in Greenland. But
during the Little Ice Age that followed, it was bitterly cold from the Atlantic eastward.
Sure enough, the monsoon wasn't quite up to par, either. Now the Atlantic's warming up again,
along with the rest of the planet. That could mean stronger monsoons for Asia this century --
and possibly more flooding, too.
Thanks to Bob Henson for today's story. Our series on global climate change is supported by
the New England Science Center Collaborative and the Roy A. Hunt Foundation.
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