Representation of natural and anthropogenic land cover change in MPI‐ESM

The purpose of this paper is to give a rather comprehensive description of the models for natural and anthropogenically driven changes in biogeography as implemented in the land component JSBACH of the Max Planck Institute Earth system model (MPI‐ESM). The model for natural land cover change (DYNVEG) features two types of competition: between the classes of grasses and woody types (trees, shrubs) controlled by disturbances (fire, windthrow) and within those vegetation classes between different plant functional types based on relative net primary productivity advantages. As part of this model, the distribution of land unhospitable to vegetation (hot and cold deserts) is determined dynamically from plant…