Holocene variations of tropical moisture balance have been ascribed to orbitally forced changes in solar insolation. If this model is correct, millennial-scale climate evolution should be antiphased between the northern and southern hemispheres, producing humid intervals in one hemisphere matched to aridity in the other. Here we show that Holocene climate trends were largely synchronous and in ...

Yuanmou Basin of Yunnan, SW China, is a famous locality with hominids, hominoids, mammals and plant fossils. Based on the published megaflora and palynoflora data from Yuanmou Basin, the climate of Late Pliocene is reconstructed using the Coexistence Approach. The results indicate a warm and humid subtropical climate with a mean annual temperature of ca. 16-17°C and a mean annual precipitation ...

The purpose of this study is to understand mineral diagenesis authigenic mineral and the effect of climate on mineral of Pleistocene-Holocene sediment deposits in the Southern Kenya Rift. Lake Magadi unique geologic settings are characterized by extreme alkalinity and high silica activities. The mineralogical analysis was achieved by X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM...

Spatial variation of tropical forest tree height is a key indicator of ecological processes associated with forest growth and carbon dynamics. Here we examine the macroscale variations of tree height of humid tropical forests across three continents and quantify the climate and edaphic controls on these variations. Forest tree heights are systematically sampled across global humid tropical fore...

The evolution of viviparity is a key life-history transition in vertebrates, but the selective forces favoring its evolution are not fully understood. With >100 origins of viviparity, squamate reptiles (lizards and snakes) are ideal for addressing this issue. Some evidence from field and laboratory studies supports the "cold-climate" hypothesis, wherein viviparity provides an advantage in cold ...

North Africa experienced dramatic changes in hydrology and vegetation during the late Quaternary driven by insolation-induced shifts of the tropical rain belt and further modulated by millennial-scale droughts and vegetation-climate feedbacks. While most past proxy and modelling studies concentrated on the temporal and spatial dynamics of the last African humid period, little is known about the...

This study was carried out to investigate the egg production performance and egg quality characteristics of the indigenous ‎chickens reared in rural areas of two different climates of Isfahan province. Totally, 2160 indigenous chickens were studied in ‎this research. Two dominant climatic regions (cold and ‎hot) were determined for Isfahan province. In each climate, two towns and three villages...

[1] The termination of the Holocene African Humid Period ( 9 to 6 kyr BP) is simulated with a threedimensional global coupled climate model that resolves synoptic variability associated with weather patterns. In the simulation, the potential for ‘‘green’’ and ‘‘desert’’ Sahara states becomes equal between 7.5 and 5.5 thousand years ago, causing the climate system to fluctuate between these stat...

BACKGROUND Maintaining a relative humidity (RH) of less than 50% is one recommendation for reducing numbers of house dust mites and their allergens in homes. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to determine whether, in a humid temperate climate, indoor RH could be sufficiently lowered to control dust mites and their allergens. METHODS During a period spanning 2 humid summers (May 1998 t...

We very much welcome the comments on our paper (Xu and Randall 1999, hereafter XR99) by Tao, Shie, and Simpson (2001, hereafter TSS). TSS comment on some different results and interpretations between XR99 and Tao et al. (1999, hereafter T99). Using the Goddard cumulus ensemble (GCE) model, T99 produced different statistical equilibrium (SE) states by changing the specifications of domain-averag...