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www.clim-past.net/5/203/2009/
doi:10.5194/cp-5-203-2009
© Author(s) 2009. This work is distributed
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Late Quaternary vegetation-climate feedbacks
Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstr. 53, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
Meteorological Institute, University Hamburg, Bundesstr. 55, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
*Invited contribution by M. Claussen, recipient of the EGU Milutin Milankovic Medal 2005.
Abstract. Feedbacks between vegetation and other components of the climate system are discussed with respect to their influence on climate dynamics during the late Quaternary, i.e., the last glacial-interglacial cycles. When weighting current understanding based on interpretation of palaeobotanic and palaeoclimatic evidence by numerical climate system models, a number of arguments speak in favour of vegetation dynamics being an amplifier of orbital forcing. (a) The vegetation-snow albedo feedback in synergy with the sea-ice albedo feedback tends to amplify Northern Hemisphere and global mean temperature changes. (b) Variations in the extent of the largest desert on Earth, the Sahara, appear to be amplified by biogeophysical feedback. (c) Biogeochemical feedbacks in the climate system in relation to vegetation migration are supposed to be negative on time scales of glacial cycles. However, with respect to changes in global mean temperature, they are presumably weaker than the positive biogeophysical feedbacks.
Final Revised Paper (PDF, 1296 KB) Discussion Paper (CPD) EGU Milutin Milankovic Medal 2005 Special Issue
Citation: Claussen*, M.: Late Quaternary vegetation-climate feedbacks, Clim. Past, 5, 203-216, doi:10.5194/cp-5-203-2009, 2009. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager XML
