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The Discovery of Global Warming                     June 2010

Images of drought and mass starvation in the Sahel, at the southern edge of the Sahara, dismayed the public in the early 1970s. Later studies confirmed a suspicion that the disaster was partly due to natural climate variability and partly to industrial pollution that changed weather patterns, but was exacerbated by overgrazing that converted grassland to scrub and hardpan.

Courtesy United Nations - FAO.