Book Chapter10.1007/978-3-540-44930-0_9
Little Ice Age climatic fluctuations in the Namib Desert, Namibia, and adjacent areas: evidence of exceptionally large floods from slack water deposits and desert soil sequences
Klaus Heine
- 01 Jan 2004
- Vol. 102, pp 137-165
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TL;DR: In this paper, slack water deposits (SWDs) are interpreted as records of reduced precipitation in the catchments of southwestern arid Africa (Namib Desert) and the biggest flash floods of the Little Ice Age (LIA) in most catchments experienced water levels in the valleys that exceeded the most extreme floods over the last 100 - 150 years.
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Abstract: Knowledge of long-term rainfall variablity is essential for water management in Namibia. Data relevant to assess this variability are scarce because of the lack of long instrumental climate records and the limited potential of standard highresolution proxy records. In northern and eastern Africa the reconstruction of Holocene tropical lake-level changes has established alternating phases of desiccation and of high stands with lake-levels more than 100 m above the present level. This record of paleohydrological changes is impressive as compared to available data collected from modern instrumented observations. Such sudden and dramatic changes of the hydrologic regime within time scales that are relevant to human societies are not known from southwestern arid Africa (Namib Desert). Fluvial silts, accumulated in some Namib valleys, are interpreted as records of reduced precipitation in the catchments. Our investigations show that these fluvial silts are slack water deposits (SWDs) and reflect hydrologic - and climatic - conditions during the late Holocene that caused extreme flash floods in the valleys. Here we describe SWDs of some Namibian Desert valleys and present 14C dates of their ages. The youngest accumulation phase occurred during the Little Ice Age (LIA)(ca. AD 1300 to 1850). The biggest flash floods of the LIA, in most catchments, experienced water levels in the valleys that exceeded the most extreme floods of the last 100 - 150 years. In the northwestern Namib Desert, flash floods of the LIA were more frequent and more extreme than in the central Namib Desert. This may be caused by small shifts of the tropical-temperate-troughs in southern Africa and the south west Indian Ocean.
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Citations
50,000-years of vegetation and climate change in the southern Namib Desert, Pella, South Africa
TL;DR: In this paper, the first continuous pollen record from the southern Namib Desert spanning the last 50,000 years is presented, which is used to reconstruct vegetation change and quantitative estimates of temperature and aridity.
The Amspoort Silts, northern Namib desert (Namibia): formation, age and palaeoclimatic evidence of river-end deposits
TL;DR: The Amspoort Silt terrace is evidence of palaeo-hydrological fluctuations in NW-Namibia as discussed by the authors, indicating that landscape degradation in NW Namibia is primarily anthropogenically induced and most probably not accelerated by a decrease in precipitation.
62
Holocene climate variability in the winter rainfall zone of South Africa
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors established a multi-proxy time series comprising analyses of major elements in bulk sediments, Sr and Nd isotopes, grain size of terrigenous fraction, and δ18O, δ13C in tests of Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (sinistral) from a marine sediment sequence recovered off the Orange River.
Environmental changes at the eastern Namib Desert margin before and after the Last Glacial Maximum: New evidence from fluvial deposits in the upper Hoanib River catchment, northwestern Namibia
Bernhard Eitel,Annette Kadereit,Wolf-Dieter Blümel,Klaus Hüser,Johanna Lomax,Alexandra Hilgers +5 more
TL;DR: In the upper Hoanib River catchment area, northwestern Namibia, fine-grained silty deposits are widespread as discussed by the authors and they form excellent geomorphological archives of a highly sensitive desert-margin area.
53
Late Holocene geochemical history inferred from Sambhar and Didwana playa sediments, Thar Desert, India: Comparison and synthesis
TL;DR: The Sambhar and Didwana playas from the eastern margin of the Thar Desert (annual precipitation of 300-450mm) have been investigated for mineralogy, major and trace element geochemistry of near surface sediments.
51
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