Articles | Volume 19, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-2093-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-2093-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
01 Nov 2023
Research article |
| 01 Nov 2023
| 01 Nov 2023
Pollen-based reconstructions of Holocene climate trends in the eastern Mediterranean region
Esmeralda Cruz-Silva
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
School of Archaeology, Geography, and Environmental Science, Reading University, Whiteknights Campus, Reading, RG6 6AH, UK
Sandy P. Harrison
School of Archaeology, Geography, and Environmental Science, Reading University, Whiteknights Campus, Reading, RG6 6AH, UK
I. Colin Prentice
Georgina Mace Centre for the Living Planet, Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Buckhurst Road, Ascot, SL5 7PY, UK
Elena Marinova
Laboratory for Archaeobotany, Baden-Württemberg State Office for Cultural Heritage Management, Fischersteig 9, 78343 Hemmenhofen-Gaienhofen, Germany
Patrick J. Bartlein
Department of Geography, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-1251, USA
Hans Renssen
Department of Natural Sciences and Environmental Health, University of South-Eastern Norway, Bø, Norway
Yurui Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
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Geosci. Model Dev., 19, 6143–6166, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-6143-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-19-6143-2026, 2026
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The early Eocene, about 50 million years ago, was a super-warm period of Earth's history, with high concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Here, we provide a framework and experimental design for climate modellers to carry out a coordinated project, simulating this period. This is the second phase of this project, and here we provide updated maps of the Earth's mountains and ocean floor, and vegetation, to enable more accurate modelling.
Matthew Forrest, Mateus Dantas de Paula, Filipe Gomes de Almeida, Sandy P. Harrison, I. Colin Prentice, and Thomas Hickler
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-3273, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-3273, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Geoscientific Model Development (GMD).
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Global photosynthesis on land is a large flow of carbon in the Earth system which underpins food production and ecosystems. It is particularly important to know how it responds to climate change, but current vegetation models do not agree on this. We implemented a new photosynthesis model based on recent theoretical advances into a vegetation model. We found that it improved the representation of photosynthesis when compared both to global data from satellites and detailed site measurements.
Jiahe Zheng, Zhengsen Xu, Rossella Arcucci, Sandy P. Harrison, Lincoln Linlin Xu, and Sibo Cheng
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 2871–2895, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-2871-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-2871-2026, 2026
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We introduce the first AI model that predicts wildfire spread with the placement of both permanent and temporary firebreaks. Our spatiotemporal model learns from simulation data to capture how fire interacts with changing suppression efforts over time. Our model runs fast enough for near real-time use and performs well across different wildfire events. This approach could lead to better tools for helping decision-makers understand where and when firebreaks are most effective.
Yurui Zhang, Jilin Wei, Zhen Li, Nan Dai, Weipeng Zheng, Qiuzhen Yin, Agatha M. de Boer, Zhengguo Shi, and Lixia Zhang
Clim. Past, 22, 879–889, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-879-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-879-2026, 2026
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This study examines how the warm Miocene (~23–5 Ma) climate responded to orbital changes compared with modern day. Simulations show weaker Miocene temperature responses with distinct spatial patterns. High latitudes were less sensitive due to weaker albedo feedback, while tropical Africa cooled more strongly from an enhanced water cycle. The Southern Ocean warmed under low insolation as winter sea ice shrank. These findings highlight how background climate states shape orbital climate responses.
Mengmeng Liu, Iain Colin Prentice, and Sandy P. Harrison
Clim. Past, 22, 205–226, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-205-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-205-2026, 2026
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Dansgaard-Oeschger events were large and rapid climate transitions that occurred multiple times during the last glacial period. We reconstructed the global pattern during these events using fossil pollen records, and found a north-south antiphasing of temperature change, and reduced seasonality in the northern extratropics.
Amin Hassan, Iain Colin Prentice, and Xu Liang
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 30, 317–341, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-317-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-30-317-2026, 2026
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Evapotranspiration is evaporation that occurs from plants, soil, and water bodies, but determining these components is difficult. We developed a new method that uses measurements such as streamflow and rainfall to determine the portion of plant evaporation. We found differences among vegetation types and climate conditions, and showed that plant water use peaks in moderately dry regions. The results improve understanding of plant-water interactions and can help improve water and climate models.
Jierong Zhao, Boya Zhou, Sandy P. Harrison, and Colin Prentice
Earth Syst. Dynam., 16, 1655–1669, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-1655-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-16-1655-2025, 2025
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We used eco-evolutionary optimality modelling to examine how climate and CO2 impacted vegetation at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; 21 000 years ago) and the mid-Holocene (MH; 6000 years ago). Low CO2 at the LGM was as important as climate in reducing tree cover and productivity and in increasing C4 plant abundance. Climate had positive effects on MH vegetation, but the low CO2 was a constraint on plant growth. These results show it is important to consider changing CO2 to model ecosystem changes.
Luke Sweeney, Sandy P. Harrison, and Marc Vander Linden
Biogeosciences, 22, 4903–4922, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-4903-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-4903-2025, 2025
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Changes in tree cover across Europe during the Holocene are reconstructed from fossil pollen data using a model developed with modern observations of tree cover and modern pollen assemblages. There is a rapid increase in tree cover after the last glacial period, with maximum cover during the mid-Holocene and a decline thereafter; the timing of the maximum and the speed of the increase and subsequent decrease vary regionally, likely reflecting differences in climate trajectories and human influence.
Joseph Ovwemuvwose, Ian Colin Prentice, and Heather Graven
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3785, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3785, 2025
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This work examines the role of cropland representation and the treatment of photosynthetic pathways in the uncertainties in the carbon flux simulations in Earth System Models (ESMs). Our results show that reducing these uncertainties will require improvement of the representation of C3 and C4 crops and natural vegetation area coverage as well as the theories underpinning the simulation of their carbon uptake and storage processes.
Peter U. Clark, Jeremy D. Shakun, Yair Rosenthal, Chenyu Zhu, Patrick J. Bartlein, Jonathan M. Gregory, Peter Köhler, Zhengyu Liu, and Daniel P. Schrag
Clim. Past, 21, 973–1000, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-973-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-973-2025, 2025
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We reconstruct changes in mean ocean temperature (ΔMOT) over the last 4.5 Myr. We find that the ratio of ΔMOT to changes in global mean sea surface temperature was around 0.5 before the Middle Pleistocene transition but was 1 thereafter. We subtract our ΔMOT reconstruction from the global δ18O record to derive the δ18O of seawater. Finally, we develop a theoretical understanding of why the ratio of ΔMOT / ΔGMSST changed over the Plio-Pleistocene.
Yurui Zhang, Hans Renssen, Heikki Seppä, Zhen Li, and Xingrui Li
Clim. Past, 21, 67–77, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-67-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-67-2025, 2025
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The upper and lower atmospheres interact. The polar regions, with high-speed, cyclonically rotating winds, provide a window through which upper winds affect surface weather and climate variability. By analysing climate model results, we found that ice sheets induced anomalous upward wave propagation and stretched the rotating winds towards North America, increasing the likelihood of cold-air outbreaks at the mid-latitudes. This accounts for the enhanced winter cooling at these latitudes.
Kieran M. R. Hunt and Sandy P. Harrison
Clim. Past, 21, 1–26, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-1-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-1-2025, 2025
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In this study, we train machine learning models on tree rings, speleothems, and instrumental rainfall to estimate seasonal monsoon rainfall over India over the last 500 years. Our models highlight multidecadal droughts in the mid-17th and 19th centuries, and we link these to historical famines. Using techniques from explainable AI (artificial intelligence), we show that our models use known relationships between local hydroclimate and the monsoon circulation.
Fang Li, Xiang Song, Sandy P. Harrison, Jennifer R. Marlon, Zhongda Lin, L. Ruby Leung, Jörg Schwinger, Virginie Marécal, Shiyu Wang, Daniel S. Ward, Xiao Dong, Hanna Lee, Lars Nieradzik, Sam S. Rabin, and Roland Séférian
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 8751–8771, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8751-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-8751-2024, 2024
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David Sandoval, Iain Colin Prentice, and Rodolfo L. B. Nóbrega
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 4229–4309, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-4229-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-4229-2024, 2024
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Numerous estimates of water and energy balances depend on empirical equations requiring site-specific calibration, posing risks of "the right answers for the wrong reasons". We introduce novel first-principles formulations to calculate key quantities without requiring local calibration, matching predictions from complex land surface models.
Nikita Kaushal, Franziska A. Lechleitner, Micah Wilhelm, Khalil Azennoud, Janica C. Bühler, Kerstin Braun, Yassine Ait Brahim, Andy Baker, Yuval Burstyn, Laia Comas-Bru, Jens Fohlmeister, Yonaton Goldsmith, Sandy P. Harrison, István G. Hatvani, Kira Rehfeld, Magdalena Ritzau, Vanessa Skiba, Heather M. Stoll, József G. Szűcs, Péter Tanos, Pauline C. Treble, Vitor Azevedo, Jonathan L. Baker, Andrea Borsato, Sakonvan Chawchai, Andrea Columbu, Laura Endres, Jun Hu, Zoltán Kern, Alena Kimbrough, Koray Koç, Monika Markowska, Belen Martrat, Syed Masood Ahmad, Carole Nehme, Valdir Felipe Novello, Carlos Pérez-Mejías, Jiaoyang Ruan, Natasha Sekhon, Nitesh Sinha, Carol V. Tadros, Benjamin H. Tiger, Sophie Warken, Annabel Wolf, Haiwei Zhang, and SISAL Working Group members
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Speleothems are a popular, multi-proxy climate archive that provide regional to global insights into past hydroclimate trends with precise chronologies. We present an update to the SISAL (Speleothem Isotopes
Synthesis and AnaLysis) database, SISALv3, which, for the first time, contains speleothem trace element records, in addition to an update to the stable isotope records available in previous versions of the database, cumulatively providing data from 365 globally distributed sites.
Synthesis and AnaLysis) database, SISALv3, which, for the first time, contains speleothem trace element records, in addition to an update to the stable isotope records available in previous versions of the database, cumulatively providing data from 365 globally distributed sites.
Katie R. Blackford, Matthew Kasoar, Chantelle Burton, Eleanor Burke, Iain Colin Prentice, and Apostolos Voulgarakis
Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 3063–3079, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3063-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-3063-2024, 2024
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Peatlands are globally important stores of carbon which are being increasingly threatened by wildfires with knock-on effects on the climate system. Here we introduce a novel peat fire parameterization in the northern high latitudes to the INFERNO global fire model. Representing peat fires increases annual burnt area across the high latitudes, alongside improvements in how we capture year-to-year variation in burning and emissions.
Huiying Xu, Han Wang, Iain Colin Prentice, and Sandy P. Harrison
Biogeosciences, 20, 4511–4525, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-4511-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-4511-2023, 2023
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Leaf carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) are crucial elements in leaf construction and physiological processes. This study reconciled the roles of phylogeny, species identity, and climate in stoichiometric traits at individual and community levels. The variations in community-level leaf N and C : N ratio were captured by optimality-based models using climate data. Our results provide an approach to improve the representation of leaf stoichiometry in vegetation models to better couple N with C cycling.
Olivia Haas, Iain Colin Prentice, and Sandy P. Harrison
Biogeosciences, 20, 3981–3995, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-3981-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-3981-2023, 2023
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We quantify the impact of CO2 and climate on global patterns of burnt area, fire size, and intensity under Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) conditions using three climate scenarios. Climate change alone did not produce the observed LGM reduction in burnt area, but low CO2 did through reducing vegetation productivity. Fire intensity was sensitive to CO2 but strongly affected by changes in atmospheric dryness. Low CO2 caused smaller fires; climate had the opposite effect except in the driest scenario.
Giulia Mengoli, Sandy P. Harrison, and I. Colin Prentice
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1261, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1261, 2023
Preprint archived
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Soil water availability affects plant carbon uptake by reducing leaf area and/or by closing stomata, which reduces its efficiency. We present a new formulation of how climatic dryness reduces both maximum carbon uptake and the soil-moisture threshold below which it declines further. This formulation illustrates how plants adapt their water conservation strategy to thrive in dry climates, and is step towards a better representation of soil-moisture effects in climate models.
Mengmeng Liu, Yicheng Shen, Penelope González-Sampériz, Graciela Gil-Romera, Cajo J. F. ter Braak, Iain Colin Prentice, and Sandy P. Harrison
Clim. Past, 19, 803–834, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-803-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-803-2023, 2023
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We reconstructed the Holocene climates in the Iberian Peninsula using a large pollen data set and found that the west–east moisture gradient was much flatter than today. We also found that the winter was much colder, which can be expected from the low winter insolation during the Holocene. However, summer temperature did not follow the trend of summer insolation, instead, it was strongly correlated with moisture.
Paolo Scussolini, Job Dullaart, Sanne Muis, Alessio Rovere, Pepijn Bakker, Dim Coumou, Hans Renssen, Philip J. Ward, and Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts
Clim. Past, 19, 141–157, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-141-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-141-2023, 2023
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We reconstruct sea level extremes due to storm surges in a past warmer climate. We employ a novel combination of paleoclimate modeling and global ocean hydrodynamic modeling. We find that during the Last Interglacial, about 127 000 years ago, seasonal sea level extremes were indeed significantly different – higher or lower – on long stretches of the global coast. These changes are associated with different patterns of atmospheric storminess linked with meridional shifts in wind bands.
Frank Arthur, Didier M. Roche, Ralph Fyfe, Aurélien Quiquet, and Hans Renssen
Clim. Past, 19, 87–106, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-87-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-87-2023, 2023
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This paper simulates transcient Holocene climate in Europe by applying an interactive downscaling to the standard version of the iLOVECLIM model. The results show that downscaling presents a higher spatial variability in better agreement with proxy-based reconstructions as compared to the standard model, particularly in the Alps, the Scandes, and the Mediterranean. Our downscaling scheme is numerically cheap, which can perform kilometric multi-millennial simulations suitable for future studies.
Huan Li, Hans Renssen, and Didier M. Roche
Clim. Past, 18, 2303–2319, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2303-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2303-2022, 2022
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In past warm periods, the Sahara region was covered by vegetation. In this paper we study transitions from this
greenstate to the desert state we find today. For this purpose, we have used a global climate model coupled to a vegetation model to perform transient simulations. We analyzed the model results to assess the effect of vegetation shifts on the abruptness of the transition. We find that the vegetation feedback was more efficient during the last interglacial than during the Holocene.
Jing M. Chen, Rong Wang, Yihong Liu, Liming He, Holly Croft, Xiangzhong Luo, Han Wang, Nicholas G. Smith, Trevor F. Keenan, I. Colin Prentice, Yongguang Zhang, Weimin Ju, and Ning Dong
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 4077–4093, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-4077-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-4077-2022, 2022
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Green leaves contain chlorophyll pigments that harvest light for photosynthesis and also emit chlorophyll fluorescence as a byproduct. Both chlorophyll pigments and fluorescence can be measured by Earth-orbiting satellite sensors. Here we demonstrate that leaf photosynthetic capacity can be reliably derived globally using these measurements. This new satellite-based information overcomes a bottleneck in global ecological research where such spatially explicit information is currently lacking.
Yicheng Shen, Luke Sweeney, Mengmeng Liu, Jose Antonio Lopez Saez, Sebastián Pérez-Díaz, Reyes Luelmo-Lautenschlaeger, Graciela Gil-Romera, Dana Hoefer, Gonzalo Jiménez-Moreno, Heike Schneider, I. Colin Prentice, and Sandy P. Harrison
Clim. Past, 18, 1189–1201, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1189-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1189-2022, 2022
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We present a method to reconstruct burnt area using a relationship between pollen and charcoal abundances and the calibration of charcoal abundance using modern observations of burnt area. We use this method to reconstruct changes in burnt area over the past 12 000 years from sites in Iberia. We show that regional changes in burnt area reflect known changes in climate, with a high burnt area during warming intervals and low burnt area when the climate was cooler and/or wetter than today.
Sandy P. Harrison, Roberto Villegas-Diaz, Esmeralda Cruz-Silva, Daniel Gallagher, David Kesner, Paul Lincoln, Yicheng Shen, Luke Sweeney, Daniele Colombaroli, Adam Ali, Chéïma Barhoumi, Yves Bergeron, Tatiana Blyakharchuk, Přemysl Bobek, Richard Bradshaw, Jennifer L. Clear, Sambor Czerwiński, Anne-Laure Daniau, John Dodson, Kevin J. Edwards, Mary E. Edwards, Angelica Feurdean, David Foster, Konrad Gajewski, Mariusz Gałka, Michelle Garneau, Thomas Giesecke, Graciela Gil Romera, Martin P. Girardin, Dana Hoefer, Kangyou Huang, Jun Inoue, Eva Jamrichová, Nauris Jasiunas, Wenying Jiang, Gonzalo Jiménez-Moreno, Monika Karpińska-Kołaczek, Piotr Kołaczek, Niina Kuosmanen, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Martin Lavoie, Fang Li, Jianyong Li, Olga Lisitsyna, José Antonio López-Sáez, Reyes Luelmo-Lautenschlaeger, Gabriel Magnan, Eniko Katalin Magyari, Alekss Maksims, Katarzyna Marcisz, Elena Marinova, Jenn Marlon, Scott Mensing, Joanna Miroslaw-Grabowska, Wyatt Oswald, Sebastián Pérez-Díaz, Ramón Pérez-Obiol, Sanna Piilo, Anneli Poska, Xiaoguang Qin, Cécile C. Remy, Pierre J. H. Richard, Sakari Salonen, Naoko Sasaki, Hieke Schneider, William Shotyk, Migle Stancikaite, Dace Šteinberga, Normunds Stivrins, Hikaru Takahara, Zhihai Tan, Liva Trasune, Charles E. Umbanhowar, Minna Väliranta, Jüri Vassiljev, Xiayun Xiao, Qinghai Xu, Xin Xu, Edyta Zawisza, Yan Zhao, Zheng Zhou, and Jordan Paillard
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 1109–1124, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1109-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1109-2022, 2022
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We provide a new global data set of charcoal preserved in sediments that can be used to examine how fire regimes have changed during past millennia and to investigate what caused these changes. The individual records have been standardised, and new age models have been constructed to allow better comparison across sites. The data set contains 1681 records from 1477 sites worldwide.
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Short summary
We examined 71 pollen records (12.3 ka to present) in the eastern Mediterranean, reconstructing climate changes. Over 9000 years, winters gradually warmed due to orbital factors. Summer temperatures peaked at 4.5–5 ka, likely declining because of ice sheets. Moisture increased post-11 kyr, remaining high from 10–6 kyr before a slow decrease. Climate models face challenges in replicating moisture transport.
We examined 71 pollen records (12.3 ka to present) in the eastern Mediterranean, reconstructing...
