The transient impact of the African monsoon on Plio-Pleistocene Mediterranean sediments
Over the Plio-Pleistocene interval a strong linkage exists between northern African climate changes and the supply of dust over the surrounding oceans and continental runoff towards the Mediterranean Sea. Both these signatures in the sedimentary record are determined by orbital cycles influencing gl...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:db4eca93a1b141d0b0733c87f2cfad67 2023-05-15T16:40:45+02:00 The transient impact of the African monsoon on Plio-Pleistocene Mediterranean sediments B. de Boer M. Peters L. J. Lourens 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-331-2021 https://doaj.org/article/db4eca93a1b141d0b0733c87f2cfad67 EN eng Copernicus Publications https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/17/331/2021/cp-17-331-2021.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1814-9324 https://doaj.org/toc/1814-9332 doi:10.5194/cp-17-331-2021 1814-9324 1814-9332 https://doaj.org/article/db4eca93a1b141d0b0733c87f2cfad67 Climate of the Past, Vol 17, Pp 331-344 (2021) Environmental pollution TD172-193.5 Environmental protection TD169-171.8 Environmental sciences GE1-350 article 2021 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-331-2021 2022-12-31T05:34:23Z Over the Plio-Pleistocene interval a strong linkage exists between northern African climate changes and the supply of dust over the surrounding oceans and continental runoff towards the Mediterranean Sea. Both these signatures in the sedimentary record are determined by orbital cycles influencing glacial variability on the one hand and northern African monsoon intensity on the other hand. In this paper, we use the intermediate-complexity model CLIMBER-2 to simulate African climate during the Plio-Pleistocene between 3.2 and 2.3 million years ago (Ma) and compare our simulations with existing and new climate reconstructions. The CLIMBER-2 model is externally forced with atmospheric CO 2 concentrations, ice sheet topography, and orbital variations, all of which strongly influence climate during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. Our simulations indicate that the records of northern Africa climate oscillate in phase with climatic precession. For the Earth's obliquity cycle, the time lag between the 41 000-year component in insolation forcing and the climatic response increased after inception of Northern Hemisphere (NH) glaciation around 2.8 Ma. To test the outcome of our simulations, we have put emphasis on the comparison between the simulated runoff of grid boxes encompassing the Sahara desert and the Sahel region and the sedimentary records of marine sediment cores from ODP Site 659 (Atlantic Ocean) and ODP Site 967 (Mediterranean). In this study we will show for the first time an extended Ti∕Al record of Site 967 down to 3.2 Ma. This record strongly correlates with runoff in the Sahara and Sahel regions, whereas correlation with the dust record of Site 659 is moderate and slightly improves after NH ice sheet inception. We investigated the transient variability of the individual and combined contributions of the Sahel and Sahara regions and found significant transient behaviour overlapping the inception of NH ice sheets (2.8 Ma) and the Plio-Pleistocene transition (2.6 Ma). Prior to 2.8 Ma, a larger contribution from ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Ice Sheet Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Climate of the Past 17 1 331 344 |
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Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
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language |
English |
topic |
Environmental pollution TD172-193.5 Environmental protection TD169-171.8 Environmental sciences GE1-350 |
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Environmental pollution TD172-193.5 Environmental protection TD169-171.8 Environmental sciences GE1-350 B. de Boer M. Peters L. J. Lourens The transient impact of the African monsoon on Plio-Pleistocene Mediterranean sediments |
topic_facet |
Environmental pollution TD172-193.5 Environmental protection TD169-171.8 Environmental sciences GE1-350 |
description |
Over the Plio-Pleistocene interval a strong linkage exists between northern African climate changes and the supply of dust over the surrounding oceans and continental runoff towards the Mediterranean Sea. Both these signatures in the sedimentary record are determined by orbital cycles influencing glacial variability on the one hand and northern African monsoon intensity on the other hand. In this paper, we use the intermediate-complexity model CLIMBER-2 to simulate African climate during the Plio-Pleistocene between 3.2 and 2.3 million years ago (Ma) and compare our simulations with existing and new climate reconstructions. The CLIMBER-2 model is externally forced with atmospheric CO 2 concentrations, ice sheet topography, and orbital variations, all of which strongly influence climate during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. Our simulations indicate that the records of northern Africa climate oscillate in phase with climatic precession. For the Earth's obliquity cycle, the time lag between the 41 000-year component in insolation forcing and the climatic response increased after inception of Northern Hemisphere (NH) glaciation around 2.8 Ma. To test the outcome of our simulations, we have put emphasis on the comparison between the simulated runoff of grid boxes encompassing the Sahara desert and the Sahel region and the sedimentary records of marine sediment cores from ODP Site 659 (Atlantic Ocean) and ODP Site 967 (Mediterranean). In this study we will show for the first time an extended Ti∕Al record of Site 967 down to 3.2 Ma. This record strongly correlates with runoff in the Sahara and Sahel regions, whereas correlation with the dust record of Site 659 is moderate and slightly improves after NH ice sheet inception. We investigated the transient variability of the individual and combined contributions of the Sahel and Sahara regions and found significant transient behaviour overlapping the inception of NH ice sheets (2.8 Ma) and the Plio-Pleistocene transition (2.6 Ma). Prior to 2.8 Ma, a larger contribution from ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
B. de Boer M. Peters L. J. Lourens |
author_facet |
B. de Boer M. Peters L. J. Lourens |
author_sort |
B. de Boer |
title |
The transient impact of the African monsoon on Plio-Pleistocene Mediterranean sediments |
title_short |
The transient impact of the African monsoon on Plio-Pleistocene Mediterranean sediments |
title_full |
The transient impact of the African monsoon on Plio-Pleistocene Mediterranean sediments |
title_fullStr |
The transient impact of the African monsoon on Plio-Pleistocene Mediterranean sediments |
title_full_unstemmed |
The transient impact of the African monsoon on Plio-Pleistocene Mediterranean sediments |
title_sort |
transient impact of the african monsoon on plio-pleistocene mediterranean sediments |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-331-2021 https://doaj.org/article/db4eca93a1b141d0b0733c87f2cfad67 |
genre |
Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Ice Sheet |
op_source |
Climate of the Past, Vol 17, Pp 331-344 (2021) |
op_relation |
https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/17/331/2021/cp-17-331-2021.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1814-9324 https://doaj.org/toc/1814-9332 doi:10.5194/cp-17-331-2021 1814-9324 1814-9332 https://doaj.org/article/db4eca93a1b141d0b0733c87f2cfad67 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-331-2021 |
container_title |
Climate of the Past |
container_volume |
17 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
331 |
op_container_end_page |
344 |
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1766031167329402880 |