Abstract. Pollen data collected in Africa at high (Kuruyange, valley swamp, Burundi) and low altitude (Lake Victoria; Ngamakala, pond, Congo) showed that after 6 ky Before Present (BP), pollen of deciduous trees increase their relative percentage, thus suggesting the beginning of a drier climate and/or an increase of the dry season length. Until now, pollen-climate transfer functions only investigated mean annual precipitation, hence omitting the potential effect of a change in precipitation seasonality. In the present study, we use an equilibrium biosphere model (i.e. BIOME3.5) to estimate the sensitivity of equatorial African vegetation to such changes, at specific sites. Climatic scenarios, differing only by the monthly distribution of the current annual amount of precipitations, are tested at the above three locations in equatorial Africa. Soil nature, monthly temperatures and cloudiness are kept constant at their present day values. A good agreement is shown between model simulations and current biomes assemblages, as reconstructed from pollen data. To date, the increase of the deciduous forest component in the palaeodata around 6 ky has been interpreted as the beginning of the drier climate period. However, our results demonstrate that a seasonal change of the precipitation distribution should likely induce such reconstructed changes toward drier vegetation types. This study confirms the necessity of taking into account seasonal changes in the hydrological balance when palaeoecologists wish to reconstruct vegetation composition or to infer quantitative climate parameters, such as temperature and precipitation, from pollen or vegetation proxy.
Convective Rainfall in Lake Victoria Watershed and Adjacent Equatorial Africa
