CP Climate of the Past CP Clim. Past 1814-9332 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/cp-10-167-2014 Late Pliocene lakes and soils: a global data set for the analysis of climate feedbacks in a warmer world Pound M. J. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8029-9548 1 Tindall J. 2 Pickering S. J. 2 Haywood A. M. 2 Dowsett H. J. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1983-7524 3 Salzmann U. 1 Department of Geography, Faculty of Engineering and Environment, Northumbria University, Ellison Building, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, UK Eastern Geology and Paleoclimate Science Center, US Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia 20192, USA 23 01 2014 10 1 167 180 Copyright: © 2014 M. J. Pound et al. 2014 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/10/167/2014/cp-10-167-2014.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/10/167/2014/cp-10-167-2014.pdf

The global distribution of late Pliocene soils and lakes has been reconstructed using a synthesis of geological data. These reconstructions are then used as boundary conditions for the Hadley Centre General Circulation Model (HadCM3) and the BIOME4 mechanistic vegetation model. By combining our novel soil and lake reconstructions with a fully coupled climate model we are able to explore the feedbacks of soils and lakes on the climate of the late Pliocene. Our experiments reveal regionally confined changes of local climate and vegetation in response to the new boundary conditions. The addition of late Pliocene soils has the largest influence on surface air temperatures, with notable increases in Australia, the southern part of northern Africa and in Asia. The inclusion of late Pliocene lakes increases precipitation in central Africa and at the locations of lakes in the Northern Hemisphere. When combined, the feedbacks on climate from late Pliocene lakes and soils improve the data to model fit in western North America and the southern part of northern Africa.

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