Estimating anthropogenic carbon release in north-western Europe during the Holocene–integrating pollen-based land use reconstructions with a dynamic vegetation model

Early agricultural activities have been suggested to explain the pre-industrial increase of atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations since the mid-Holocene. Several studies have attempted to estimate the effect of past land useon global terrestrial carbon storage, based on spatial estimates of land useintensity primarily inferred indirectly using e.g. historical records, population density and per capita land requirement estimates, soil and climate suitability. However, the estimates on past human population size and locations incorporate high uncertainty levels, and the actual area of land usedper person for agricultural activities is even less known. As a result, the existing global land usedatasets show large discrepancies in spatial pattern and intensity of estimates