Clim. Past Discuss., 5, 2577–2606, 2009 www.clim-past-discuss.net/5/2577/2009/ Climate of the Past © Author(s) 2009. This work is distributed under Discussions the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. This discussion paper is/has been under review for the journal Climate of the Past (CP). Please refer to the corresponding final paper in CP if available. Vegetation response to the African Humid Period termination in central Cameroon (7◦ N) – new pollen insight from Lake Mbalang A. Vincens1, G. Buchet1, M. Servant2, and ECOFIT Mbalang collaborators* 1Centre Europeen´ de Recherche et d’Enseignement des Geosciences´ de l’Environnement, Universite´ Aix-Marseille, CNRS, CDF, IRD, BP 80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 04, France 2IRD, 32 avenue Henri Ravagnat, 93143 Bondy Cedex, France *C. Barton, S. Ngos, F. Nguetsop, S. Servant-Vildary, M. Tchotsoua Received: 23 November 2009 – Accepted: 6 December 2009 – Published: 22 December 2009 Correspondence to: A. Vincens (
[email protected]) Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 2577 Abstract A new pollen sequence from the Lake Mbalang (7◦190 N, 13◦440 E, 1110 m a.s.l.) lo- cated on the eastern Adamawa plateau, in central Cameroon, is presented in this paper to analyze the Holocene African Humid Period (AHP) termination and related vegeta- ◦ 5 tion changes at 7 N in tropical Africa, a region where any data are today available. This sequence, spanning the last 7000 cal. yr BP, shows that the vegetation response to this transitional climatic episode was neither abrupt nor really gradual. Forest degradation in this area is initially registered as early as 6100 cal.