The arid–humid transition in the Sahara and the Sahel during the last deglaciation

At the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, the Sahara and Sahel regions of North Africa were extremely dry. New records of rainfall show that during the subsequent deglaciation, the transition from arid to humid conditions in these regions occurred synchronously in two main steps. Comparison with other records of palaeoclimate in Europe and the North Atlantic Ocean shows that certain common factors controlled changes in ocean and atmosphere dynamics during the deglaciation.