Dominant vegetation types across Africa in Miocene climate simulations. (IMAGE)
Caption
Dominant vegetation types across Africa in Miocene climate simulations. each map shows the spatial distribution of major plant functional types (PFts)
derived from simulations using the dynamic vegetation model lPJ-GUeSS under different combinations of reconstructed Miocene topography and atmospheric cO₂
concentrations. vegetation cover is classified into three categories based on the dominant PFt in each grid cell: forest (dark green; tree dominated), herbaceous (light
green; grass dominated), or bare/low-cover vegetation (beige). the top row of the figure shows simulations with Pi atmospheric cO₂ levels (280 ppm), labeled Mt25,
Mt20, and Mt15, representing 25, 20, and 15 million years ago, respectively. these scenarios isolate the effect of tectonic uplift by using Miocene topography alone. the
bottom row (Mc25, Mc20, and Mc15) includes Miocene topography plus elevated atmospheric cO₂ levels derived from paleo-proxy data (460 to 500 ppm). the final
panel (M15h) represents a high-cO₂ sensitivity experiment (800 ppm at 15 Myr) to evaluate the nonlinear effects of extreme cO₂ forcing. this figure illustrates both
spatial and temporal changes in African ecosystems across the Miocene, showing expansion of forest cover under higher cO₂ conditions and varying biome distributions
as a function of both topography and atmospheric composition. the colored outlines emphasize the grouping by cO₂ level: green for Pi, red for proxy-forced, and bright
red for the high-cO₂ case.
Credit
Niklas Werner and Qiong Zhang.
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May be used in connection to research from Stockholm University.
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