50-year seasonal variability in East African droughts and floods recorded in central Afar lake sediments and their connections with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation

• Published in: Climate of the past 2024-08, Vol.20 (8), p.1837-1860
• Main Authors: Mologni, Carlo, Revel, Marie, Chaumillon, Eric, Malet, Emmanuel, Coulombier, Thibault, Sabatier, Pierre, Brigode, Pierre, Hervé, Gwenael, Develle, Anne-Lise, Schenini, Laure, Messous, Medhi, Davtian, Gourguen, Carré, Alain, Bosch, Delphine, Volto, Natacha, Ménard, Clément, Khalidi, Lamya, Arnaud, Fabien
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: African rift system; Agricultural management; Agricultural production; Analysis; Archives & records; Basins; Carbon 14; Carbonates; Catchment area; Clay; Climate change; Dam construction; Dams; Design and construction; Disasters; Drought; Ears; El Nino; El Nino phenomena; El Nino-Southern Oscillation event; Environmental Sciences; Extreme drought; Flood predictions; Floods; Flow rates; Fluvial deposits; Geomorphology; Global warming; Hydrologic drought; Hydrology; Inflow; Lake basins; Lake deposits; Lake sediments; Lake water; Lakes; Ocean-atmosphere interaction; Palaeomagnetism; Paleomagnetism; Precipitation; Precipitation variability; Radiocarbon dating; Radioisotopes; Radiometric dating; Radionuclide kinetics; Rain; River catchments; River flow; Rivers; Sea surface temperature; Sea surface temperature anomalies; Seasonal variability; Seasonal variation; Seasonal variations; Sediment; Sedimentary facies; Sediments; Semi arid environments; Semiarid environments; Soil erosion; Soil water; Southern Oscillation; Surface temperature; Temperature anomalies; Topography; Varves; Water availability; Water inflow; Water management; Water shortages
• ISSN: 1814-9332; 1814-9324; 1814-9332
• DOI: 10.5194/cp-20-1837-2024

Understanding past and present hydrosystem feedbacks to global ocean-atmospheric interactions represents one of the main challenges to preventing droughts, extreme events, and related human catastrophes in the face of global warming, especially in arid and semiarid environments. In eastern Africa, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) was identified as one of the primary drivers of precipitation variability affecting water availability. However, the northern East African Rift System (EARS) still suffers from the underrepresentation of predictive and ENSO teleconnection models because of the scarcity of local to regional historical or palaeo-data.