LULC LandCover6k paper

A new paper from LandCover6k members presents the overall strategy of the working group plus the products and their current and potential uses.

Sandy Harrison et al. published "Development and testing scenarios for implementing land use and land cover changes during the Holocene in Earth system model experiments" in Geoscientific Model Development.

Anthropogenic changes in land use and land cover (LULC) during the pre-industrial Holocene could have affected regional and global climate. Existing scenarios of LULC changes during the Holocene are based on relatively simple assumptions and highly uncertain estimates of population changes through time. Archaeological and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions have the potential to refine these assumptions and estimates.

LandCover6k is working towards improved reconstructions of LULC globally. In this paper, authors document the types of archaeological data that are being collated and how they will be used to improve LULC reconstructions and propose a protocol to evaluate the revised scenarios using independent pollen-based reconstructions of land cover and climate.

This paper is also a contribution to the group's special issue "Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project phase 4 (PMIP4)". Access the special issue here.