What is it about?
We used stalagmite, upward growing mounds of sediments in caves, to reconstruct the climate history of Northeastern Namibia between 1400 and 1950. We looked specifically at stable isotopes (oxygen and carbon), mineralogy, and other petrographic features in the stalagmite to provide a comprehensive understanding of its past climate.
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Why is it important?
The research allowed us to better understand how stalagmites record environmental and climatic changes, how such changes can be associated with the hydrology of the region, and how all of these can be linked to global climatic changes (such as the north-south migration of the equatorial rain-belt) and other external climatic factors (such as changes in solar activity). Few studies, specifically those producing high-resolution data, have been done to understand the climatic and environmental changes in Namibia, and our study fills such gaps.
Perspectives
Namibia is one of the driest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and it is among regions in Africa where sensitivity to climate changes is substantial. Understanding the past history of its climate would tremendously help at predicting the likely behavior of its climate in the future, thus informing policy maker and land managers to prepare its society (hoping that vulnerability of sensitive regions to the negative impacts of climate change would be reduced).
Ny Riavo G Voarintsoa
University of Georgia
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Stalagmite multi-proxy evidence of wet and dry intervals in northeastern Namibia: Linkage to latitudinal shifts of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone and changing solar activity from AD 1400 to 1950, The Holocene, July 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0959683616660170.
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