ArticleScience advances2017
Rainfall regimes of the Green Sahara.
Article in Science advances, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers.
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Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 411 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Hydroclimate variability in the central Mediterranean during MIS 17 interglacial (Middle Pleistocene) highlights timing offset with monsoon activity.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- North African humid periods over the past 800,000 years.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Climate system asymmetries drive eccentricity pacing of hydroclimate during the early Eocene greenhouse.Science advances · 2023Article
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
During the "Green Sahara" period (11,000 to 5000 years before the present), the Sahara desert received high amounts of rainfall, supporting diverse vegetation, permanent lakes, and human populations. Our knowledge of rainfall rates and the spatiotemporal extent of wet conditions has suffered from a lack of continuous sedimentary records. We present a quantitative reconstruction of western Saharan precipitation derived from leaf wax isotopes in marine sediments. Our data indicate that the Green Sahara extended to 31°N and likely ended abruptly. We find evidence for a prolonged "pause" in Green Sahara conditions 8000 years ago, coincident with a temporary abandonment of occupational sites by Neolithic humans. The rainfall rates inferred from our data are best explained by strong vegetation and dust feedbacks; without these mechanisms, climate models systematically fail to reproduce the Green Sahara. This study suggests that accurate simulations of future climate change in the Sahara and Sahel will require improvements in our ability to simulate vegetation and dust feedbacks.
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