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The effect of land surface changes on Eemian climate

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Abstract

Transient experiments for the Eemian (128–113 ky BP) were performed with a complex, coupled earth system model, including atmosphere, ocean, terrestrial biosphere and marine biogeochemistry. In order to investigate the effect of land surface parameters (background albedo, vegetation and tree fraction and roughness length) on the simulated changes during the Eemian, simulations with interactive coupling between climate and vegetation were compared with additional experiments in which these feedbacks were suppressed. The experiments show that the influence of land surface on climate is mainly caused by changes in the albedo. For the northern hemisphere high latitudes, land surface albedo is changed partially due to the direct albedo effect of the conversion of grasses into forest, but the indirect effect of forests on snow albedo appears to be the major factor influencing the total absorption of solar radiation. The Western Sahara region experiences large changes in land surface albedo due to the appearance of vegetation between 128 and 120 ky BP. These local land surface albedo changes can be as much as 20%, thereby affecting the local as well as the global energy balance. On a global scale, latent heat loss over land increases more than 10% for 126 ky BP compared to present-day.

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Acknowledgments

This work was performed in the CLIMCYC project, funded by the DEKLIM program of the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). We would like to thank Martin Claussen and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

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Author notes

  1. Guy Schurgers

    Present address: Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystems Analysis, Lund University, Sölvegatan 12, 223 62, Lund, Sweden

  2. Miren Vizcaíno

    Present address: Department of Geography, University of California, 531 McCone Hall, Berkeley, CA, 94720-4740, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Bundesstrasse 53, 20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Guy Schurgers, Uwe Mikolajewicz, Matthias Gröger, Ernst Maier-Reimer & Miren Vizcaíno

  2. Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Center for Climatic Research, 1225 W. Dayton St, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Arne Winguth

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  1. Guy Schurgers
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Correspondence to Guy Schurgers.

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Schurgers, G., Mikolajewicz, U., Gröger, M. et al. The effect of land surface changes on Eemian climate. Clim Dyn 29, 357–373 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-007-0237-x

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