Plant proxy evidence for high rainfall and productivity in the Eocene of Australia

Here, we revisit 12 southern Australian plant megafossil sites from the early to middle Eocene to generate temperature, precipitation, and seasonality paleoclimate estimates, net primary productivity (NPP), and vegetation type, based on paleobotanical proxies and compare them to early Eocene global climate models.

Temperature reconstructions are uniformly subtropical (mean annual, summer, and winter mean temperatures 19-21 degrees C, 25-27 degrees C, and 14-16 degrees C, respectively), indicating that southern Australia was similar to 5 degrees C warmer than today, despite a >20 degrees poleward shift from its modern geographic location. Precipitation was less homogeneous than temperature, with mean annual precipitation of similar to 60 cm over inland sites and >100 cm over coastal sites.