Lead–lag relationships between atmospheric trends of temperature and carbon dioxide concentrations during the pliocene

Reconstructions of the average global near-surface air temperature and carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere for the late Pliocene are compared. For this purpose, a special technique of multiscale analysis based on wavelets was developed. It is found that temperature changes on timescales of 100 to 500 kyr lead the respective changes in the carbon dioxide concentration at about 10–25 kyr. It means that these reconstructions cannot be used for assessing the climate sensitivity to changes in the carbon dioxide concentration.