View from the western Sanetti Plateau towards Tullu Dimtu; with 4377 m above sea level it is the highest peak in the Bale Mountains. During the last glacial period, Tullu Dimtu and the central Sanetti Plateau were covered by an extensive ice cap. Image: Alexander R. Groos
View from the western Sanetti Plateau towards Tullu Dimtu; with 4377 m above sea level it is the highest peak in the Bale Mountains. During the last glacial period, Tullu Dimtu and the central Sanetti Plateau were covered by an extensive ice cap. Image: Alexander R. Groos - Although past temperature variations in the tropics are of great importance to understanding the global climate system, little is known about their extent and chronological course. Researchers under the leadership of the University of Bern have now been able to demonstrate strong local cooling in the tropics during the last glacial period on the basis of glacier fluctuations and large stone stripes in the Ethiopian Highlands. As the driver of global atmospheric and ocean circulation, the tropics play a central role in understanding past and future climate change. Both global climate simulations and worldwide ocean temperature reconstructions indicate that the cooling in the tropics during the last cold period, which began about 115,000 years ago, was much weaker than in the temperate zone and the polar regions. The extent to which this general statement also applies to the tropical high mountains of Eastern Africa and elsewhere is, however, doubted on the basis of palaeoclimatic, geological and ecological studies at high elevations.
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