Middle East climate response to the Saharan vegetation collapse during the mid-Holocene

Abstract

Understanding climate change in the Middle East (ME) is crucial because people’s living environment depends on rain-fed crop systems. It remains unclear if the ME climate would be affected by the Saharan vegetation collapse at the end of the mid-Holocene (MH). Proxy data suggest a transition from humid to more arid ME conditions during the period of 6.5-5 kyr BP. Using a set of idealized sensitivity experiments with an Earth System model (EC-Earth), we infer that the shift of Saharan vegetation plays a role in this wet-to-dry transition over the ME. The experimental results show that the Saharan greening can significantly increase the late winter and early spring precipitation over the ME. The reason is that the vegetation decreases the surface albedo, which induces a warming in North Africa and generation of an anomalous low level cyclonic flow, which transports moisture from tropical North Africa and the Red Sea to the ME. The moisture also flows from the Mediterranean region to the ME through the enhanced mid-upper level westerlies. The enhanced moisture carried by westerly and southwesterly flows is lifted upon reaching the Mesopotamia and Zagros Mountains, substantially increasing the precipitation there. When the Sahara greening is removed, a drier condition happens in the ME. The crop model simulation further shows a substantial decrease in wheat yield in Mesopotamia with the reduction of Saharan vegetation, which is consistent with paleoclimatic reconstructions. These results imply that future changes in Saharan land cover may have climatic and agricultural impacts in the Middle East.