Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Simulation of an abrupt change in Saharan vegetation in the Mid‐Holocene

Simulation of an abrupt change in Saharan vegetation in the Mid‐Holocene Climate variability during the present interglacial, the Holocene, has been rather smooth in comparison with the last glacial. Nevertheless, there were some rather abrupt climate changes. One of these changes, the desertification of the Saharan and Arabian region some 4–6 thousand years ago, was presumably quite important for human society. It could have been the stimulus leading to the foundation of civilizations along the Nile, Euphrat and Tigris rivers. Here we argue that Saharan and Arabian desertification was triggered by subtle variations in the Earth's orbit which were strongly amplified by atmosphere‐ vegetation feedbacks in the subtropics. The timing of this transition, however, was mainly governed by a global interplay between atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, and vegetation. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Geophysical Research Letters Wiley

Simulation of an abrupt change in Saharan vegetation in the Mid‐Holocene

Download PDF
4 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/wiley/simulation-of-an-abrupt-change-in-saharan-vegetation-in-the-mid-ZXXkDk8IBN

References (28)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the American Geophysical Union.
ISSN
0094-8276
eISSN
1944-8007
DOI
10.1029/1999GL900494
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Climate variability during the present interglacial, the Holocene, has been rather smooth in comparison with the last glacial. Nevertheless, there were some rather abrupt climate changes. One of these changes, the desertification of the Saharan and Arabian region some 4–6 thousand years ago, was presumably quite important for human society. It could have been the stimulus leading to the foundation of civilizations along the Nile, Euphrat and Tigris rivers. Here we argue that Saharan and Arabian desertification was triggered by subtle variations in the Earth's orbit which were strongly amplified by atmosphere‐ vegetation feedbacks in the subtropics. The timing of this transition, however, was mainly governed by a global interplay between atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, and vegetation.

Journal

Geophysical Research Letters – Wiley

Published: Jul 15, 1999

There are no references for this article.