Introduction
Vegetation modeling is central to understanding the role that plants have played in shaping the Earth’s atmospheric composition and climate in the past, and the potential responses and feedbacks of vegetation to future climate changes. Over the past decade, a series of global vegetation models have been applied to the subject of late Quaternary and Holocene climate change. Because a vegetation model provides a complete picture of the Earth’s land surface, and because it produces a diagnostic that can be directly compared to paleo-observations (e.g., plant assemblages), vegetation models have been particularly useful for evaluating the output of general circulation models (GCMs). Progress in vegetation modeling has enabled the researcher to simulate vegetation patterns with more detail, and to evaluate other variables with paleoproxies, such as dust fluxes, methane emissions, and carbon storage. Current directions in late Quaternary and Holocene vegetation modeling include...
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Kaplan, J.O. (2009). Late Quaternary-Holocene Vegetation Modeling. In: Gornitz, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4411-3_126
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