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EME-09 Risks, Resources, and Record of the Past on the Continental Shelf
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Humans and 135,000 years of climate change
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Renée Hetherington, University of Victoria, Climate Modelling Group (Canada)
Michael Eby, University of Victoria, Climate Modelling Group (Canada)
Shawn Marshall, University of Calgary (Canada)
Andrew J. Weaver, University of Victoria, Climate Modelling Group (Canada)
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This paper considers how rapid climate change may have influenced modern humans since our origin in Africa around 135,000 years ago, including our initial dispersal out of Africa about 100,000 years ago and our subsequent migration to distant continents. The University of Victoria Earth System Climate Model, a coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea-ice-vegetation model, is used to investigate changes in global climate over the last 135,000 years and ascertain the potential influence of climate change on human evolution, behaviour, and migration. The model is driven by time-dependent changes in atmospheric CO2 and orbital forcing through the last glacial cycle. Land-ice thickness is interpolated from prior ice sheet simulations at 1000-year intervals. Results from a 120,000-year time-series climate simulation indicates changing land and surface air temperatures, land and sea ice extent, precipitation, and coverage and productivity of various vegetation types as the Earth moved through glacial and interglacial cycles. Linkages between changes in these environmental indicators and human migration are explored. Of particular relevance to this session is the potential that exposed continental shelves acted as refugia and migration corridors for modern humans as they disseminated around the world.
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