The global vegetation distribution determines the physical properties of the land surface, such as the roughness, albedo or water conductivity, and is a key player in the terrestrial carbon cycle. Hence, the vegetation directly affects the climate on Earth. In turn, the global climate controls the large-scale spatial vegetation distribution. Biogeophysical and biogeochemical interactions between vegetation and climate have contributed to past climate changes and will affect the future. Understanding past vegetation dynamics and their role in the climate system is thus of utmost importance.

The increasing publication of large-scale syntheses of vegetation reconstructions and the steadily growing ability to perform long-term transient and sophisticated past time-slice Earth system model simulations allow for more and more detailed analyses of the large-scale vegetation transitions and their effect on climate. However, previous studies also reveal that new metrics are needed to quantitatively compare the more complex reconstructions and model results.

With this special issue, we bundle reconstructions, vegetation simulations and comparison tools. It comprises the broad theme of past vegetation dynamics and their interaction with climate. This includes (a) vegetation simulations of various time intervals, (b) regional to global data–model or model–model comparison studies, (c) development of data–model comparison tools and techniques, and (d) vegetation–climate dynamics inferred from compilations of regional to global vegetation records. Data compilation products are also considered if the compiled data are integrated and used to address specific questions about past vegetation dynamics.