Response of the African Monsoon to Orbital Forcing and Ocean Feedbacks in the Middle Holocene

Abstract

Simulations with a climate model that asynchronously couples the atmosphere and the ocean showed that the increased amplitude of the seasonal cycle of insolation in the Northern Hemisphere 6000 years ago could have increased tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures in late summer. The simulated increase in sea surface temperature and associated changes in atmospheric circulation enhanced the summer monsoon precipitation of northern Africa by more than 25 percent, compared with the middle Holocene simulation with prescribed modern sea surface temperatures, and provided better agreement with paleorecords of enhanced monsoons.