Regional Climate in Southern Africa Through Ancient Times: What Can We Infer From Numerical Modelling?

Abstract:

Regional modelling activities at the Center for Early Sapiens Behaviour (University of Bergen) aim to obtain local-scale climate information in southern Africa for selected periods between 125-50 ka; a time when human cognition and technology underwent rapid development. Here we present our first results, inferred from simulations performed with the WRF atmospheric model. WRF downscales output from the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM) from a spatial resolution of ~ 400 km to ~12 km, thus providing us with a much more detailed representation of the south African climate. Our findings reveal that the amplitude of millennial-scale climate variability were especially pronounced along the southern coast of Africa, where a number of important archaeological sites are located. This is mainly due to the fact that the area is highly sensitive to alterations in coastline position and sea surface temperatures, two important factors that modulate the local response to changes in global and regional climate.