UC Irvine

Abstract Wood harvesting alters land surface properties and energy redistribution, but there is a lack of studies estimating these changes on a global scale. We coupled a vegetation demographic model, the Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator, with the E3SM land model to perform offline model simulation to investigate the land biogeophysical responses, including canopy coverage, leaf area index, albedo, surface roughness length, and energy fluxes, to historical wood harvest on the global scale. In this study, we found 50% less harvested carbon (C) when choosing the area‐based harvest rate as driving data that has not been spatially harmonized, compared to reharmonized mass‐based harvesting. By considering the uncertainty from reconstruction of historical wood harvest time series and the choice of wood harvest approach in the model, continuous wood harvest (1850–2015) results in 5%–10% of canopy coverage loss, contributing 0.5%–1% increase of albedo over disturbed land, which is much stronger than a non‐demographic land surface model. Changes in energy flux from the wood harvest are negligible (<1%), but the responses of land surface properties vary (up to 30%) due to differences in model structure between the single canopy, sun‐shade leaf model and vegetation demographic model. Plain Language Summary We study the impact of historical global wood harvesting on vegetation structure and land surface heating using a land surface model (E3SM land model) coupled with a detailed vegetation demography model (Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator). A more realistic harvest approach based on the amount of wood harvested, rather than the area harvested, is applied to match the total historical harvested wood product. We estimate less vegetation canopy coverage and total leaf amount, and lower effective plant heights historically compared to a land surface model with no representation of individual plant populations. Key Points A vegetation demography model (Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator), coupled to a land surface model simulates historical wood harvest and secondary forest regrowth Accumulated canopy coverage loss (1850–2015) reaches 5%–10%, causing 0.5%–1% global increase of albedo over harvested regions Incorporating vegetation demography strengthens the biogeophysical impact of wood harvest, compared to a single canopy model (E3SM land model)