Past plant life tell the real story of global temperatures

Incredible tropical green forest view with sun flare in morning.
Incredible tropical green forest view with sun flare in morning.

Alexander Thompson, a postdoctoral research associate in earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, updated simulations from an important climate model to reflect the role of changing vegetation as a key driver of global temperatures over the last 10,000 years.

Thompson took evidence from pollen records and designed a set of experiments with a climate model known as the Community Earth System Model (CESM), one of the best-regarded models in a wide-ranging class of such models. He ran simulations to account for a range of changes in vegetation that had not been previously considered.

“Expanded vegetation during the Holocene warmed the globe by as much as 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit,” 

Alexander Thompson

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