Land surfaces have experienced (and are still experiencing) profound changes resulting from land uses (e.g. deforestation, urban planning, ...). These changes in the distribution of vegetation types have consequences on the functioning of the biosphere, and may therefore have significant contributions to climate change itself. But such contributions have not yet been fully addressed, nor quantified.

The objective of this PhD work will be to answer some of the following scientific questions:

- How sensitive has past climate change been to land-use induced land-cover changes?

- To what extent is the attribution of climate change to anthropogenic forcings (e.g. CO2, aerosols, land-uses) modified when accounting for realistic land-use induced land-cover changes?

- What is the magnitude of the error we make on projections of future regional climate change if we do not account for land uses?