EGU25-17276, updated on 15 Mar 2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17276
EGU General Assembly 2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
 Climate Models and Hominin Niches: Insights from the Last Glacial Cycle
Deepak Kumar Chinnaswamy1, Antje Schwalb1, and Sebastian Wagner2
Deepak Kumar Chinnaswamy et al.
  • 1Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute for Geosystems and Bioindication, Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences, Braunschweig, Germany (astroast6@gmail.com)
  • 2Helmholtz-Zentrum hereon, Geesthacht, Germany

Climate models are fundamental in shaping the narratives of the future impacts of humans on climate, yet their capacity to illuminate past climate impacts on humans remains largely unexplored. This study explores possibilities, challenges and limitations of using comprehensive Earth System  Models to reconstruct the climatic niches of hominins during the Last Interglacial (LIG) and the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).

Hominin niches are primarily shaped by temperature and precipitation patterns, incorporating archaeological and environmental constraints. While paleoclimate reconstructions are commonly used, they are sometimes complemented by climate models. Intermediate Complexity Models are widely applied for their efficiency but lack the resolution and detailed processes offered by Earth System Models (ESMs) or Regional Climate Models (RCMs). Despite their advantages, ESMs and RCMs are computationally expensive for long-term simulations. Moreover, most studies rely on a single climate model, which can introduce significant biases. Here we utilize six Coupled Model Intercomparison Project sixth phase (CMIP6) models to highlight these biases and examine differences in the climatic niche patterns over Europe during the Last Interglacial (LIG), and the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) compared to pre-industrial conditions.

LGM and LIG are the periods with contrasting background climates that humans have experienced. The models show good agreement in terms of mean climate but they tend to diverge during periods of higher variability (like LGM winters). The LIG climate had a larger temperature range with precipitation levels comparable to pre-industrial times over Europe. At the same time during the LGM, the temperature range was high, still, mean temperatures were subzero for half of the year with a similar amount of precipitation. While catabatic winds kept Europe colder during the LGM in the vicinity of the large Scandinavian Inland Ice Sheet, orbitally induced continental heating resulted in warmer LIG summers. However, Iberia and parts of Western Europe maintained moderate climate conditions during both periods. Although the CMIP6 suite of ESM models agrees with each other broadly, getting into specific aspects and regional characteristics can be ambiguous.

Our findings emphasize the need for multi-model approaches to elucidate biases and provide more robust insights into hominin climatic niches. Future research will explore regional variations across Europe, allowing a better understanding of past human-climate interactions.

How to cite: Chinnaswamy, D. K., Schwalb, A., and Wagner, S.:  Climate Models and Hominin Niches: Insights from the Last Glacial Cycle, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-17276, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-17276, 2025.