Modeling vegetation and land use in models of the earth system

Among the effects of natural vegetation, the positive biogeophysical snow-vegetation-albedo feedback of the high latitudes is expected to increasingly influence global climate in response to increasing vegetation density. Still, human or natural disturbances and other not well-understood processes may alter expected outcomes. Interactive nitrogen is one of the newer additions to our models.

Nitrogen is found to buffer the terrestrial biosphere's response to forcings, such as changing CO₂ or climate. We still have much to learn about nitrogen's role in the Earth System. Yet, if land use dominates the effects of land cover change on climate, then human behavior will be our greatest uncertainty, which includes management choices that are not easy to predict, such as urbanization, deforestation and afforestation, crop expansion or abandonment, as well as crop rotation, irrigation, and fertilization.