Despite East Africa experiencing more and more droughts as CO₂ and temperatures rise, climate models tend to predict that the region will get wetter in the future. A new study out in Nature presents past climate reconstructions of temperature and hydroclimate using biomarkers in lake sediment to disentangle this paradox.

In the article “Past climate unravels the eastern African paradox” in Nature assistant Professor Rachel Lupien weighs in on the work as an expert not associated with the project in an accompanying News & Views article. She boils down the research for a broader audience and discusses how it fits within the field, noting that the study supports previous work of hers demonstrating a change in external climate drivers on the sensitive region through time.