Articles | Volume 18, issue 8
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1897-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1897-2022
Research article
 | Highlight paper
 | 
22 Aug 2022
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 22 Aug 2022

Effects of orbital forcing, greenhouse gases and ice sheets on Saharan greening in past and future multi-millennia

Mateo Duque-Villegas, Martin Claussen, Victor Brovkin, and Thomas Kleinen

Related authors

Tipping the ENSO into a permanent El Niño can trigger state transitions in global terrestrial ecosystems
Mateo Duque-Villegas, Juan Fernando Salazar, and Angela Maria Rendón
Earth Syst. Dynam., 10, 631–650, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-631-2019,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-10-631-2019, 2019
Short summary

Related subject area

Subject: Climate Modelling | Archive: Marine Archives | Timescale: Pleistocene
A new global surface temperature reconstruction for the Last Glacial Maximum
James D. Annan, Julia C. Hargreaves, and Thorsten Mauritsen
Clim. Past, 18, 1883–1896, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1883-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1883-2022, 2022
Short summary
Evaluating seasonal sea-ice cover over the Southern Ocean at the Last Glacial Maximum
Ryan A. Green, Laurie Menviel, Katrin J. Meissner, Xavier Crosta, Deepak Chandan, Gerrit Lohmann, W. Richard Peltier, Xiaoxu Shi, and Jiang Zhu
Clim. Past, 18, 845–862, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-845-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-845-2022, 2022
Short summary
A multi-model CMIP6-PMIP4 study of Arctic sea ice at 127 ka: sea ice data compilation and model differences
Masa Kageyama, Louise C. Sime, Marie Sicard, Maria-Vittoria Guarino, Anne de Vernal, Ruediger Stein, David Schroeder, Irene Malmierca-Vallet, Ayako Abe-Ouchi, Cecilia Bitz, Pascale Braconnot, Esther C. Brady, Jian Cao, Matthew A. Chamberlain, Danny Feltham, Chuncheng Guo, Allegra N. LeGrande, Gerrit Lohmann, Katrin J. Meissner, Laurie Menviel, Polina Morozova, Kerim H. Nisancioglu, Bette L. Otto-Bliesner, Ryouta O'ishi, Silvana Ramos Buarque, David Salas y Melia, Sam Sherriff-Tadano, Julienne Stroeve, Xiaoxu Shi, Bo Sun, Robert A. Tomas, Evgeny Volodin, Nicholas K. H. Yeung, Qiong Zhang, Zhongshi Zhang, Weipeng Zheng, and Tilo Ziehn
Clim. Past, 17, 37–62, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-37-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-37-2021, 2021
Short summary
From monsoon to marine productivity in the Arabian Sea: insights from glacial and interglacial climates
Priscilla Le Mézo, Luc Beaufort, Laurent Bopp, Pascale Braconnot, and Masa Kageyama
Clim. Past, 13, 759–778, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-13-759-2017,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-13-759-2017, 2017
Short summary
Oxygen stable isotopes during the Last Glacial Maximum climate: perspectives from data–model (iLOVECLIM) comparison
T. Caley, D. M. Roche, C. Waelbroeck, and E. Michel
Clim. Past, 10, 1939–1955, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-1939-2014,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-1939-2014, 2014

Cited articles

Archer, D. and Brovkin, V.: The millennial atmospheric lifetime of anthropogenic CO2, Clim. Change, 90, 283–297, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-008-9413-1, 2008. a
Bartlein, P. J., Harrison, S. P., Brewer, S., Connor, S., Davis, B. A. S., Gajewski, K., Guiot, J., Harrison-Prentice, T. I., Henderson, A., Peyron, O., Prentice, I. C., Scholze, M., Seppä, H., Shuman, B., Sugita, S., Thompson, R. S., Viau, A. E., Williams, J., and Wu, H.: Pollen-based continental climate reconstructions at 6 and 21 ka: a global synthesis, Clim. Dynam., 37, 775–802, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-010-0904-1, 2011. a, b
Bathiany, S., Claussen, M., and Fraedrich, K.: Implications of climate variability for the detection of multiple equilibria and for rapid transitions in the atmosphere-vegetation system, Clim. Dynam., 38, 1775–1790, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-011-1037-x, 2012. a
Bauer, E. and Ganopolski, A.: Aeolian dust modeling over the past four glacial cycles with CLIMBER-2, Global Planet. Change, 74, 49–60, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2010.07.009, 2010. a
Bauer, E. and Ganopolski, A.: Sensitivity simulations with direct shortwave radiative forcing by aeolian dust during glacial cycles, Clim. Past, 10, 1333–1348, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-1333-2014, 2014. a
Download
Co-editor-in-chief
The alternation of vegetated and arid Sahara has long attracted wide interest in paleoclimate field. This study presents a suite of highly interesting simulations of the past 190,000 years with a state-of-the-art Earth system model of intermediate complexity. This set of experiments are rigorously designed and analyzed, which allow the authors to make an important discovery of what controls the onset of African Humid Period: i.e. a threshold in orbital forcing, which decreases at elevated CO2 concentration. Moreover, maximum rates of change in simulated vegetation extent during the onset and termination of African Humid Period correlate strongly with the rates of change of the orbital forcing. A factor separation analysis further confirms the dominant role of the orbital forcing in driving the amplitude of precipitation and vegetation extent for past African Humid Period. These results have broad implications to future variability of Sahara climate in response to orbital forcing changes and non-linear earth system feedbacks.
Short summary
Using an Earth system model of intermediate complexity, we quantify contributions of the Earth's orbit, greenhouse gases (GHGs) and ice sheets to the strength of Saharan greening during late Quaternary African humid periods (AHPs). Orbital forcing is found as the dominant factor, having a critical threshold and accounting for most of the changes in the vegetation response. However, results suggest that GHGs may influence the orbital threshold and thus may play a pivotal role for future AHPs.