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Early Holocene greening of the Sahara requires Mediterranean winter rainfall

Cheddadi, Rachid ; Carré, Matthieu ; Nourelbait, Majda ; François, Louis ; Rhoujjati, Ali ; Manay, Roger ; Ochoa, Diana ; Schefuß, Enno

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, 2021-06, Vol.118 (23) [Periódico revisado por pares]

Washington: National Academy of Sciences

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  • Título:
    Early Holocene greening of the Sahara requires Mediterranean winter rainfall
  • Autor: Cheddadi, Rachid ; Carré, Matthieu ; Nourelbait, Majda ; François, Louis ; Rhoujjati, Ali ; Manay, Roger ; Ochoa, Diana ; Schefuß, Enno
  • Assuntos: African humid period green Sahara ; Climate change ; Climate models ; Earth sciences & physical geography ; Environmental changes ; Geophysics ; Holocene ; Lakes ; Monsoons ; Paleoclimate ; Paleoclimate reconstructions ; Physical Sciences ; Physical, chemical, mathematical & earth Sciences ; Physics ; Physique, chimie, mathématiques & sciences de la terre ; Pollen ; Precipitation ; Rainfall ; Sciences de la terre & géographie physique ; Seasonal distribution ; Summer ; Vegetation ; Vegetation cover ; Vegetation model simulations ; Wind ; Winter
  • É parte de: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, 2021-06, Vol.118 (23)
  • Notas: scopus-id:2-s2.0-85107404632
    1R.C., M.C., L.F., and E.S. contributed equally to this work.
    Edited by Francesco S. R. Pausata, University of Quebec in Montreal, Montreal, Canada, and accepted by Editorial Board Member Donald R. Ort April 20, 2021 (received for review December 17, 2020)
    Author contributions: R.C. and M.C. designed research; R.C., M.C., L.F., and E.S. performed research; M.C., L.F., and E.S. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; R.C., M.C., M.N., A.R., R.M., D.O., and E.S. produced and analyzed paleoclimate data; L.F. performed simulations; A.R. performed fieldwork with minor contributions to the paper; and R.C., M.C., L.F., and E.S. wrote the paper.
  • Descrição: Significance Explaining the greening of the Sahara during the Holocene has been a challenge for decades. A strengthening of the African monsoon caused by increased summer insolation is usually cited to explain why the Sahara was vegetated from 14,000 to 5,000 y ago. Here, we provide a unique climate record of quantified winter, spring, and summer precipitation in Morocco over the past 18,500 y, and numeric simulations, which show that moisture contributions from the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean in winter, were as important as the expanded summer monsoon for the greening of the Sahara during the African humid period. The findings of this study will help to better understand and simulate climate variability over northern Africa. The greening of the Sahara, associated with the African Humid Period (AHP) between ca. 14,500 and 5,000 y ago, is arguably the largest climate-induced environmental change in the Holocene; it is usually explained by the strengthening and northward expansion of the African monsoon in response to orbital forcing. However, the strengthened monsoon in Early to Middle Holocene climate model simulations cannot sustain vegetation in the Sahara or account for the increased humidity in the Mediterranean region. Here, we present an 18,500-y pollen and leaf-wax δD record from Lake Tislit (32° N) in Morocco, which provides quantitative reconstruction of winter and summer precipitation in northern Africa. The record from Lake Tislit shows that the northern Sahara and the Mediterranean region were wetter in the AHP because of increased winter precipitation and were not influenced by the monsoon. The increased seasonal contrast of insolation led to an intensification and southward shift of the Mediterranean winter precipitation system in addition to the intensified summer monsoon. Therefore, a winter rainfall zone must have met and possibly overlapped the monsoonal zone in the Sahara. Using a mechanistic vegetation model in Early Holocene conditions, we show that this seasonal distribution of rainfall is more efficient than the increased monsoon alone in generating a green Sahara vegetation cover, in agreement with observed vegetation. This conceptual framework should be taken into consideration in Earth system paleoclimate simulations used to explore the mechanisms of African climatic and environmental sensitivity.
  • Editor: Washington: National Academy of Sciences
  • Idioma: Inglês
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