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Holocene land-cover reconstructions for studies on land cover-climate feedbacks
M.-J. Gaillard1, S. Sugita2, F. Mazier3,5, J. O. Kaplan4, A.-K. Trondman1, A. Broström5, T. Hickler5, E. Kjellström6, P. Kuneš7, C. Lemmen8, J. Olofsson5, B. Smith5, and G. Strandberg6
1School of Pure and Applied Sciences, Linnaeus University, 39182 Kalmar, Sweden
2Institute of Ecology, Tallinn University, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia
3GEODE, UMR 5602, University of Toulouse, 5 allée A. Machado, 31058 Toulouse Cedex, France
4ARVE Group, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Station 2, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
5Department of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, Lund University, Sölvegatan 12, 223 62 Lund, Sweden
6Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, 60176 Norrköping, Sweden
7Institute of Earth Sciences, Aarhus University, C. F. Møllers Allé 4, 8000 Århus C, Denmark
8Institute for Coastal Research, GKSS-Forschungszentrum Geesthacht GmbH, 21502 Geesthacht, Germany
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Abstract. The major objectives of this paper are: (1) to review the pros and cons of
the scenarios of past anthropogenic land cover change (ALCC) developed
during the last ten years, (2) to discuss issues related to pollen-based
reconstruction of the past land-cover and introduce a new method, REVEALS
(Regional Estimates of VEgetation Abundance from Large Sites), to infer
long-term records of past land-cover from pollen data, (3) to present a new
project (LANDCLIM: LAND cover – CLIMate interactions in NW Europe
during the Holocene) currently underway, and show preliminary results of
REVEALS reconstructions of the regional land-cover in the Czech Republic for
five selected time windows of the Holocene, and (4) to discuss the
implications and future directions in climate and vegetation/land-cover
modeling, and in the assessment of the effects of human-induced changes in
land-cover on the regional climate through altered feedbacks. The existing
ALCC scenarios show large discrepancies between them, and few cover time
periods older than AD 800. When these scenarios are used to assess the
impact of human land-use on climate, contrasting results are obtained. It
emphasizes the need of REVEALS model-based land-cover
reconstructions. They might help to fine-tune descriptions of past
land-cover and lead to a better understanding of how long-term changes in
ALCC might have influenced climate. The REVEALS model is proved to provide
better estimates of the regional vegetation/land-cover changes than the
traditional use of pollen percentages. Thus, the application of REVEALS
opens up the possibility of achieving a more robust assessment of
land cover at regional- to continental-spatial scale
throughout the Holocene. We present maps of REVEALS estimates for the
percentage cover of 10 plant functional types (PFTs) at 200 BP and 6000 BP,
and of the two open-land PFTs "grassland" and "agricultural land" at
five time-windows from 6000 BP to recent time. The LANDCLIM results are
expected to provide crucial data to reassess ALCC estimates for a better
understanding of the land suface-atmosphere interactions.
 Notice on Discussion StatusThe requested discussion paper has a corresponding peer-reviewed
final revised paper in the journal Climate of the Past (CP). You are
encouraged to refer to the final revised version. Final Revised Paper (CP) Discussion Paper (PDF, 3298 KB)
Citation: Gaillard, M.-J., Sugita, S., Mazier, F., Kaplan, J. O., Trondman, A.-K., Broström, A., Hickler, T., Kjellström, E., Kuneš, P., Lemmen, C., Olofsson, J., Smith, B., and Strandberg, G.: Holocene land-cover reconstructions for studies on land cover-climate feedbacks, Clim. Past Discuss., 6, 307-346, doi:10.5194/cpd-6-307-2010, 2010. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager XML
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