Global biogeophysical interactions between forest and climate

[1] In two sensitivity experiments using the Earth System Model of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-ESM), the vegetation cover of the ice-free land surface has been set worldwide to either forest or grassland in order to quantify the quasi-equilibrium response of the atmosphere and ocean components to extreme land surface boundary conditions. After 400 years of model integration, the global mean annual surface temperature increased by 0.7°K and declined by 0.6°K in the forest and grassland simulations, respectively, as compared to the control simulation. Thereafter, the geographic distribution of vegetation has been allowed to respond interactively to climate. After subsequent 500 years of interactive climate-vegetation dynamics, both forest and grassland simulations converged to essentially the same climate state as in the control simulation. This convergence suggests an absence of multiple climate-forest states in the current version of the MPI-ESM.

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