Articles | Volume 19, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1531-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1531-2023
Research article
 | 
27 Jul 2023
Research article |  | 27 Jul 2023

The challenge of comparing pollen-based quantitative vegetation reconstructions with outputs from vegetation models – a European perspective

Anne Dallmeyer, Anneli Poska, Laurent Marquer, Andrea Seim, and Marie-José Gaillard

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Cited articles

Bader, J., Jungclaus, J., Krivova, N., Lorenz, S., Maycock, A., Raddatz, T., Schmidt, H., Toohey, M., Wu, C. J., and Claussen, M.: Global temperature modes shed light on the Holocene temperature conundrum, Nat. Commun., 11, 4726, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18478-6, 2020. 
Berger, A. L.: Long-term variations of daily insolation and Quaternary climatic changes, J. Atmos. Sci., 35, 2361–2367, https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1978)035<2362:ltvodi>2.0.co;2, 1978. 
Boy, M., Zhou, P., Kurtén, T., Chen, D., Xavier, C., Clusius, P., Roldin, P., Baykara, M., Pichelstorfer, L., Foreback, B., Bäck, J., Petäjä, T., Makkonen, R., Kerminen, V.-M., Pihlatie, M., Aalto, J., and Kulmala, M.: Positive feedback mechanism between biogenic volatile organic compounds and the methane lifetime in future climates, npj Clim. Atmos. Sci., 5, 72, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-022-00292-0, 2022. 
Braconnot, P., Zhu, D., Marti, O., and Servonnat, J.: Strengths and challenges for transient Mid- to Late Holocene simulations with dynamical vegetation, Clim. Past, 15, 997–1024, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-15-997-2019, 2019. 
Brovkin, V., Raddatz, T., Reick, C. H., Claussen, M., and Gayler, V.: Global biogeophysical interactions between forest and climate, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, 1–5, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009GL037543, 2009. 
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Short summary
We compare past tree cover changes in Europe during the last 8000 years simulated with two dynamic global vegetation models and inferred from pollen data. The major model–data mismatch is related to the much earlier onset of anthropogenic deforestation in the data compared to the prescribed land use in the models. We show that land use, and not climate, is the main driver of the Holocene forest decline. The model–data agreement depends on the model tuning, challenging model–data comparisons.
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