Understanding Chad Basin Evolution Since Miocene: Climate and Vegetation Simulations, Roles of Orbital Parameters and East African Rift.
Abstract
Since the discovery of the earliest hominid known, Chad basin is a major place to study paleoclimates and hominid evolution. This discovery implies to re-evaluate the "East Side Story" paradigm for early hominids. To achieve this goal, we have performed numerical simulations to quantify the climatic and vegetation response of the Rift Uplift. We used a zoomed (144 X 108) AGCM (LMDz from IPSL). On the one hand, offline continental biosphere model (ORCHIDEE) has been used to simulate the vegetation response over western and eastern parts of the rift. On the other hand, since geomorphologic evidences have shown that from Upper Miocene to mid-Holocene Lake Chad had known several level oscillations leading to a huge lake known as Mega Lake Chad (MLC), we also ran atmospheric simulations to demonstrate, with boundary conditions at 6 000 BP, that orbital forcing allowed the existence of a MLC. Volume and surface of the lake have been calculated using an adapted lake model. These simulations have shown that the ITCZ shift induced by the mid-Holocene orbital parameters drives the existence of a MegaChad. Our model result having been tested successfully for the last occurrence of the MLC, we will apply it to Upper Miocene accounting for topographic changes, in order to reconstruct as accurately as possible the first hominids environments.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004AGUFM.U13A..05S
- Keywords:
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- 9305 Africa;
- 3344 Paleoclimatology;
- 4267 Paleoceanography