Fundamentally unchanged northwestern African rainfall regimes across the Plio-Pleistocene transition.

ABSTRACT: Northern African climate is characterized by strongly contrasting wet summers and dry winters. Dust exported by the northeasterly trade (Harmattan) winds creates marine sedimentary records that have been long interpreted to show that northern African climate became drier and more variable across the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary [2.58 million years ago (Ma)], when global climate cooled and high-latitude glacial-interglacial cycles intensified. However, questions about the impact of summer rainfall on winter dust fluxes and thus the history of the African summer monsoons remain. We present a leaf wax hydrogen isotope record from offshore northwestern Africa that demonstrates that rainfall regimes remained stable and varied solely in response to 21,000-year cycles in summer insolation from 3

SUBMITTER: Mitsunaga BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12180497 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature