Simulating the Evolution of the Asian and African Monsoons During The
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Simulating the evolution of the Asian and African monsoons during the past 30 Myr using an atmospheric general circulation model Frédéric Fluteau, Gilles Ramstein, Jean Besse To cite this version: Frédéric Fluteau, Gilles Ramstein, Jean Besse. Simulating the evolution of the Asian and African monsoons during the past 30 Myr using an atmospheric general circulation model. Journal of Geo- physical Research: Atmospheres, American Geophysical Union, 1999, 104 (D10), pp.11995-12018. 10.1029/1999JD900048. hal-03012020 HAL Id: hal-03012020 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03012020 Submitted on 7 Dec 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 104, NO. D10, PAGES 11,995-12,018, MAY 27, 1999 Simulating the evolution of the Asian and African monsoons during the past 30 Myr using an atmospheric general circulation model Fr6d6ricFluteau, 1'2 G. Ramstein2 and Jean Besse 1 Abstract. At geologictimescales, many proxy data suggest a contrastingevolution of Asianand African monsoonssince the Oligocene.The Asian summermonsoon increases drastically around 8 Ma, whereasthe African summermonsoon gradually weakens during the Miocene.Using an atmosphericgeneral circulation model, we simulatemost of the spatialevolutions of both monsoonsonly accountingfor the changesof paleogeography,including continental drift, orogeny, and sealevel change.The paleogeographicchanges modify drastically the climateover central and southernAsia betweenthe Oligoceneand the present.The retreatof an epicontinentalsea warms centralEurasia in summer.The heatingof thisarea and the uplifts of the Tibetanplateau and of the Himalayasdeepen the Asianlow-pressure cell anddisplace it northwest.This thenshifts precipitationfrom Indochinatoward the southernflank of the Himalayas.This is in good agreementwith proxydata. Therefore our modelingstudies support a shiftand a strengtheningof the Asianmonsoon during the late Tertiary ratherthan a real "onset".We suggestthat the increase in seasonalprecipitation and the strengtheningof the numberof dayswith heavyrainfall over the Himalayasfrom 30 Ma to the presentmay be of criticalimportance to explainthe long- term evolutionof physicalerosion of this area.We alsoinvestigate the respectiveimpact of the Paratethysshrinkage and of the Tibetanplateau uplift throughsensitivity experiments and prove that the Paratethysretreat plays an importantrole in monsoonevolution. The northwarddrift of the African continentconfines summer monsoon precipitation to a thinbelt whichfavors the stretching of the subtropicaldesert, in goodagreement with data.We finally showthat duringthe Oligocene, the African andAsian monsoon systems are clearlyseparated by the Tethysseaway. The closureof this seawayand the evolutionof the Asianmonsoon induce a connectionbetween both monsoon systemsin the low andmiddle troposphere. 1. Introduction Although driven by a commonmechanism, the rainfall intensity of the Asian monsoon is stronger than that of the African The monsoondominates the large-scaletropical circulationon monsoon. This difference is due to the Asian continental size and both the African and Southeast Asian continents. It results from to the presenceof orography(Tibetan plateau and Himalayan the thermal contrastbetween the continent and the surrounding range) [James,1994]. ocean [Hastenrath, 1985; Webster, 1987]. In winter, the Monsoonspresent a large time variability, rangingfrom years continent is colder than the ocean and induces northeasterly to thousandsof yearsand more [Prell et al., 1992]. At geologic winds toward the Arabian Sea (Asian monsoon)and toward the timescales(more than a million years), paleoclimaticindicators Gulf of Guinea(African monsoon), producing weak precipitation suggestan abruptstrengthening of the Asianmonsoon during the because of the little moisture brought by these atmospheric late Miocene, about7.5 Ma [Quade et al., 1989; Prell et al., masses [Hastenrath, 1985]. In summer, overheated continents 1992]. Althoughsparse, paleoclimatic indicators suggest the become warmer than the ocean. A low-pressurecell is then developmentof a subtropicaldesert over northemAfrica to the generatedover the warm continents,and a high-pressurecell over detrimentof the monsoon[Axelrod and Raven, 1978;Ruddiman the cold ocean. This differential heating induces advectionof et al., 1989; Maley, 1996]. moist air, producing heavy precipitation in a tropical belt At geologictimescales, monsoon evolution may be influenced stretchingacross Africa, India, and SoutheastAsia. The release by differentforcing factors such as paleogeographicchanges, of a huge amountof latent heat contributesto the strengthening oceanic circulation changes, variations of carbon dioxide of the monsoon circulation [Hastenrath, 1985; Webster, 1987]. concentration and variations in insolation [Barron and Washington,1984; Frakes et al., 1992]. The impactof someof these forcing factors was investigatedthrough numerical 1Laboratoirede Pa16omagn6tisme et G6odynamique, Institut de experimentsusing an atmosphericgeneral circulation model Physiquedu Globede Paris. (AGCM) [Barronand Washington,1984; Kutzbach et al., 1989; 2LaboratoiredesSciences duClimat etde l'Environnement, CE-Saclay. Ramstein et al., 1997a]. Until now, mostexperiments on the monsoonhave focusedon Copyright1999 by theAmerican Geophysical Union. theimpact of a mountainuplift without accounting for changesin Papernumber 1999JD900048. platemotions or sea-landdistribution. Sensitivity experiments to 0148-0227/99/1999JD900048509.00 the Himalayanand Tibetanuplift were doneusing full or half 11,995 11,996 FLUTEAU ET AL.: SIMULATING THE EVOLUTION OF MONSOONS altitude of the mountain rangesin a presentday environment in their relative positions. For this, we use the finite [Kutzbach et al., 1989; Ruddirnanand Kutzbach, 1989; Prell and reconstructionparameters of Olivet et al. [ 1984] for the North Kutzback, 1992; Kutzbach et al., 1993]. Major resultswere that and Central Atlantic Ocean, of Niirnberg and Muller [ 1991] for the uplift of the Tibetanplateau significantly increases the Asian the South Atlantic Ocean, and of Royer and Sandwell [ 1989] for monsoonintensity over mostof southernAsia (+50% in summer the Indian Ocean. The paleomagneticsynthetic apparent polar precipitation) [Prell and Kutzbach, 1992] and modifies the wanderpaths (APWPs) of Besseand Courtillot [ 1991] were then climate over adjacentareas (Siberia, central Asia, Middle East, used to fix the paleolatitude grid. These APWPs were Mediterranean basin) [Kutzbach et al., 1989; Ruddirnan and constructedfrom a careful selectionof the best paleomagnetic Kutzbach, 1989]. polesavailable for Asia, Europe,America, and Africa, transferred Other factors such as atmospheric carbon dioxide onto a single referenceframe and averagedover 20 Myr time concentration, oceanic circulation, and orbital parameters windows. In each of these independentwindows, data from influence the climate. The atmosphericcarbon dioxide plays a individual plates are almost always found to be in agreement, significantrole. The modelingcurve of Berner [ 1992] points out whichverifies the qualityof the originalpaleomagnetic data, the an atmosphericCO 2 concentrationdoubled with respect to the cinematicmodels, and the axial dipole assumption.The 20 Ma present day in the past 30 Myr. Prell and Kutzbach [1992] sequencesof paleomagneticpoles define a "synthetic"APWP, in showedthat a CO2 doublingenhances monsoon precipitation by excellent agreementwith the "classical"paths from each plate. only 7%. Conversely,this CO 2 doublingcould lead to a 6øC The 95% level uncertaintieson pole positionsare of the orderof warmingat middle and high latitudes[Ruddirnan et al., 1997a]. 3ø for the 10 and 30 Ma poles,leading to rather well constrained Oceaniccirculation patterns are induced by the evolution of paleolatitudes. oceanic basinsand the closureor opening of seaways(another The hot-spot referenceframe [Morgan, 1983] was not used consequenceof plate motions).Despite tectonic drift, the major becausesignificant inter-hot spot motion [Chase, 1983; Molnar features of the oceanic circulation in the late Cenozoic were and Stock, 1987] and true polar wander [Besseand Courtillot, relatively similar to present day circulation. A thermohaline 1991] cast some doubt on the use of this method as a global oceanic circulation began to be establishedduring the early reconstruction tool. Miocene [Kennett and Scott, 1990]. Oxygen isotopic analyses The proceduredescribed above can be used as long as show a weak cooling of sea surfacetemperature (SST) at high continentsare not stronglydeformed, or separatedby destructive latitudesduring the late Tertiary but hardly any changesin SST active margins. This is, of course,not the case for the regions occurred in the tropics [Frakes et al., 1994]. Finally, using an borderingthe Tethys, where a collision has occurredsince the AGCM coupledwith a mixed oceaniclayer allowing to take into end of the Mesozoic.In particular,central and southeastAsia are account