Different temperature sensitivities to land use change in the RCPs

Land use change in the CMIP5 Representative concentration pathways (RCPs) has both positive and negative changes in forest fraction and crop land cover, which is not related linearly to the amount of radiative forcing in the scenario. The Land-use and Climate Identification of robust impacts project (LUCID) clearly showed that in RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 it is unlikely that anthropogenic land use and land cover change (LULCC) will have a significant effect on global climate. However, the LUCID study only considered future scenarios of deforestation (RCP2.6 and RCP8.5). In contrast, the two ‘middle’ radiative forcing RCP scenarios (RPC4.5 and RCP6.0) have decreases in crop and pasture land projected over the century, resulting in very different LULCC scenarios compared to the two other RCPs.