Insolation and glacial–interglacial control on southwestern African hydroclimate over the past 140 000 years

The past climate evolution of southwestern Africa is poorly understood and interpretations of past hydrological changes are sometimes contradictory. Here we present a record of leaf-wax δ D and δ C 13 taken from a marine sediment core at 23°S off the coast of Namibia to reconstruct the hydrology and C 3 versus C 4 vegetation of southwestern Africa over the last 140 000 years (140 ka). We find lower leaf-wax δ D and higher δ C 13 (more C 4 grasses), which we interpret to indicate wetter Southern Hemisphere (SH) summer conditions and increased seasonality, during SH insolation maxima relative to minima and during the last glacial period relative to the Holocene and the last interglacial period. Nonetheless, the dominance of C 4 grasses throughout the record indicates that the wet season remained brief and that this region has remained semi-arid. Our data suggest that past precipitation increases were derived from the tropics rather than from the winter westerlies. Comparison with a record from the Congo Basin indicates that hydroclimate in southwestern Africa has evolved in antiphase with that of central Africa over the last 140 ka.