Mid-Holocene greening of the Sahara: first results of the GAIM 6000 year BP Experiment with two asynchronously coupled atmosphere/biome models

Noblet-Ducoudré, N. de; Claußen, Martin; Prentice, Colin

doi:10.1007/s003820000074

Cited by 135 publications

(42 citation statements)

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“…These simulations are in general agreement to our results for northern North Africa, even though climatic changes in the Quaternary modelling studies are less pronounced than in SAHARA minus TORT. Based on climate simulations for Quaternary times, it was proposed that the vegetation-albedo feedback mechanism was a major factor for triggering the African monsoon (e.g., Claussen and Gayler, 1997;de Noblet-Ducoudre et al, 2000). However, a slightly different picture was shown from Early Miocene and Pliocene model experiments.…”

Section: North Africamentioning

confidence: 97%

The Late Miocene climate response to a modern Sahara desert

Micheels

Eronen

Mosbrugger

2009

Global and Planetary Change

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Section: North Africamentioning

confidence: 97%

The Late Miocene climate response to a modern Sahara desert

Micheels

Eronen

Mosbrugger

2009

Global and Planetary Change

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“…"Anomaly" methods are commonly used in climate impact analysis (e.g., Santer 1985;Füssel and van Minnen 2001) and in studies in which models of a particular component of the climate system (e.g., ice sheet or vegetation models) are forced by the output of a coupled climate model (e.g., de Noblet-Ducoudré et al 2000;Lunt et al 2004;Charbit et al 2002). Anomaly forcing of an atmospheric GCM with the output of a coupled ocean-atmosphere climate model belongs to this class of applications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of Oceanic Boundary Conditions in Simulations of Antarctic Climate and Surface Mass Balance Change during the Coming Century

Krinner

Guicherd

et al. 2008

Journal of Climate

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International audienceThis article reports on high-resolution (60 km) atmospheric general circulation model simulations of the Antarctic climate for the periods 1981–2000 and 2081–2100. The analysis focuses on the surface mass balance change, one of the components of the total ice sheet mass balance, and its impact on global eustatic sea level. Contrary to previous simulations, in which the authors directly used sea surface boundary conditions produced by a coupled ocean–atmosphere model for the last decades of both centuries, an anomaly method was applied here in which the present-day simulations use observed sea surface conditions, while the simulations for the end of the twenty-first century use the change in sea surface conditions taken from the coupled simulations superimposed on the present-day observations. It is shown that the use of observed oceanic boundary conditions clearly improves the simulation of the present-day Antarctic climate, compared to model runs using boundary conditions from a coupled climate model. Moreover, although the spatial patterns of the simulated climate change are similar, the two methods yield significantly different estimates of the amplitude of the future climate and surface mass balance change over the Antarctic continent. These differences are of similar magnitude as the intermodel dispersion in the current Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) exercise: selecting a method for generating boundary conditions for a high-resolution model may be just as important as selecting the climate model itself. Using the anomaly method, the simulated mean surface mass balance change over the grounded ice sheet from 1981–2000 to 2081–2100 is 43-mm water equivalent per year, corresponding to a eustatic sea level decrease of 1.5 mm yr−1. A further result of this work is that future continental-mean surface mass balance changes are dominated by the coastal regions, and that high-resolution models, which better resolve coastal processes, tend to predict stronger precipitation changes than models with lower spatial resolution

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“…Paleovegetation simulations along a latitudinal transect in eastern North America during the last glacial maximum (LGM, 21 kya) reveal the role of co-varying sub-ambient CO 2 and precipitation reductions as an underlying mechanism promoting a no-analog glacial ecosystem in North America called the Picea Parkland (Cowling, 1999). Paleoclimate-vegetation simulations at the time of the mid-Holocene climatic optimum has resulted in a greater recognition of the role of vegetation in altering surface energy and water fluxes, particularly the expansion of vegetation in northern Africa around 6000 years ago (de Noblet-Ducoudre et al, 2000;Levis et al, 2004;Knorr & Schnitzler, 2006). Continental Africa is one example of where an incomplete record of paleovegetation data has fueled a series of ongoing controversies, including whether central African forests shrunk to small forest patches ('refugia') (Haffer, 1969;Haffer & Prance, 2001) or whether early hominid species exploited grasslandsavannas resources during periods of glacial advance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulated glacial and interglacial vegetation across Africa: implications for species phylogenies and trans‐African migration of plants and animals

Cowling

Cox

Jones

et al. 2007

Global Change Biology

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The paleoenvironmental context of plant and animal species evolution (including glacial migrations and population separations) is based on a very patchy and incomplete paleophytogeographic record. It was our objective, therefore, to provide an additional source for paleovegetation comparison by presenting simulations from a state-of-the-art fully coupled earth system model (HadCM3LC). We simulated potential paleovegetation distributions following pre-Industrial and last glacial maximum (LGM) climate forcing for the continent of Africa. Our LGM simulations indicate that tropical broadleaf forest was not severely displaced by expanding grasslands within central Africa, although the outer extent of closed forest decreases, particularly in the north. Our simulations indicate that the structure of glacial forests may have been much different from today, in thatLGM simulations indicate that forests were likely characterized by lower leaf area indexes, lower tree heights and lower vegetation carbon content. On the other hand, warmer interglacial climate (like our pre-Industrial climate scenario) results in simulated expansion of tropical forest from coast to coast across central Africa that we postulate could have acted as a barrier to plant and animal species migrations. We suggest that our modeling experiments have implications for the interpretation of phylogenetic data, including that of our own species, Homo sapiens sapiens.

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Mid-Holocene greening of the Sahara: first results of the GAIM 6000 year BP Experiment with two asynchronously coupled atmosphere/biome models

Cited by 135 publications

References 0 publications

The Late Miocene climate response to a modern Sahara desert

The Late Miocene climate response to a modern Sahara desert

Influence of Oceanic Boundary Conditions in Simulations of Antarctic Climate and Surface Mass Balance Change during the Coming Century

Simulated glacial and interglacial vegetation across Africa: implications for species phylogenies and trans‐African migration of plants and animals

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