Clim. Past, 15, 1083–1097, 2019 https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-1083-2019 © Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Effects of atmospheric CO2 variability of the past 800 kyr on the biomes of southeast Africa Lydie M. Dupont1, Thibaut Caley2, and Isla S. Castañeda3 1MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany 2EPOC, UMR 5805, CNRS, University of Bordeaux, Pessac, France 3University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Geosciences, Amherst, MA, USA Correspondence: Lydie M. Dupont (
[email protected]) Received: 6 February 2019 – Discussion started: 20 February 2019 Revised: 10 May 2019 – Accepted: 23 May 2019 – Published: 19 June 2019 Abstract. Very little is known about the impact of atmo- 1 Introduction spheric carbon dioxide pressure (pCO2) on the shaping of biomes. The development of pCO2 throughout the Brun- Understanding the role of atmospheric carbon dioxide pres- hes Chron may be considered a natural experiment to eluci- sure (pCO2) is paramount for the interpretation of the of date relationships between vegetation and pCO2. While the the palaeovegetation record. The effects of low pCO2 on glacial periods show low to very low values (∼ 220 to ∼ glacial vegetation have been discussed in a number of stud- 190 ppmv, respectively), the pCO2 levels of the interglacial ies (Ehleringer et al., 1997; Jolly and Haxeltine, 1997; Cowl- periods vary from intermediate to relatively high (∼ 250 to ing and Sykes, 1999; Prentice and Harrison, 2009; Prentice more than 270 ppmv, respectively). To study the influence of et al., 2017) predicting that glacial increases in C4 vegeta- pCO2 on the Pleistocene development of SE African vege- tion favoured by low atmospheric CO2 would have opened tation, we used the pollen record of a marine core (MD96- the landscape and lowered the tree line.