Land-atmosphere interactions and regional Earth system dynamics due to natural and anthropogenic vegetation changes

The focus in the thesis work is study of how regional variations and changes in vegetation patterns, in composition of vegetation and in vegetation structure, due to climate change and other anthropogenic forcing, can influence the atmosphere, the ecosystems and the overall climate via feedback mechanisms. The thesis work includes studies of different world regions, time and spatial scales, and comparisons between them. The main regional foci of the thesis work are Europe and Africa. The main modeling tool will be the regional coupled climate/ecosystem model RCA-GUESS, but the research may also involve the use of its components as such (RCA and LPJ-GUESS, respectively). Much of the research will be done in close collaboration with other projects in which the RCA-GUESS is being further developed and applied as a research tool.
The thesis work includes development, evaluation and application efforts of RCA-GUESS. Consequently, the candidate also needs to consider driving data (climate, land use) and scenarios, as well as model evaluation data and methodologies.