The role of spatial scale and background climate in the latitudinal  temperature response to deforestation

Li, Yan; Noblet‐Ducoudré, Nathalie de; Davin, Edouard L.; Motesharrei, Safa; Zeng, Ning; Li, Shuangcheng; Kalnay, Eugenia

doi:10.5194/esd-7-167-2016

Cited by 70 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Under a warmer climate background, the warming effect caused by albedo is smaller due to reduced snow cover [15,27]. The difference in ET between forests and open lands may decrease in regions with a sufficient amount of soil moisture, but it increases when a region experiences soil moisture depletion [48].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The increase in soil moisture for forests tends to increase the surface heat capacity, which results in increases in daytime heat storage and nighttime heating. In addition, due to the higher ET from forests relative to open land, the increases in air humidity and boundary layer clouds increase the downward longwave radiation from the atmosphere and decrease the upward longwave radiation from the surface, which increases surface temperatures at night [9,15,17].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Over the past few decades, most of the known effects of forests on the climate in Europe have been derived from models, while global climate models were not suitable for the local impacts of forest on climate due to their coarse spatial resolutions and uncertainties in the physical processes, parameterization and input data [5,15]. Regional climate models in Europe are often based on comparisons among climate model outputs for different land cover conditions, with the major difference being that forests in one scenario are replaced by open land conditions in another scenario [29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Local Effects of Forests on Temperatures across Europe

Tang

Zhao

2018

Remote Sensing

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Forests affect local climate through biophysical processes in terrestrial ecosystems. Due to the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of ecosystems in Europe, climate responses to forests vary considerably with diverse geographic and seasonal patterns. Few studies have used an empirical analysis to examine the effect of forests on temperature and the role of the background climate in Europe. In this study, we aimed to quantitatively determine the effects of forest on temperature in different seasons with MODIS (MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) land surface temperature (LST) data and in situ air temperature measurements. First, we compared the differences in LSTs between forests and nearby open land. Then, we paired 48 flux sites with nearby weather stations to quantify the effects of forests on surface air temperature. Finally, we explored the role of background temperatures on the above forests effects. The results showed that (1) forest in Europe generally increased LST and air temperature in northeastern Europe and decreased LST and air temperature in other areas; (2) the daytime cooling effect was dominate and produced a net cooling effect from forests in the warm season. In the cold season, daytime and nighttime warming effects drove the net effect of forests; (3) the effects of forests on temperatures were mainly negatively correlated with the background temperatures in Europe. Under extreme climate conditions, the cooling effect of forests will be stronger during heatwaves or weaker during cold spring seasons; (4) the background temperature affects the spatiotemporal distribution of differences in albedo and evapotranspiration (forest minus open land), which determines the spatial, seasonal and interannual effects of forests on temperature. The extrapolation of the results could contribute not only to model validation and development but also to appropriate land use policies for future decades under the background of global warming.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Local Effects of Forests on Temperatures across Europe

Tang

Zhao

2018

Remote Sensing

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“…Second, climate models are subject to large uncertainties in physical processes, parameterization, and input data [ Oleson et al ., ; Pitman et al ., ], while in situ measurements are relatively sparse at large scales and thus suffer from insufficient spatial sampling. For instance, areas where forest cover change is prevalent, like South America and Africa [ Hansen et al ., ; W. Li et al ., ], are underrepresented in the Global Historical Climate Network [ Montandon et al ., ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential and Actual impacts of deforestation and afforestation on land surface temperature

et al. 2016

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Forests are undergoing significant changes throughout the globe. These changes can modify water, energy, and carbon balance of the land surface, which can ultimately affect climate. We utilize satellite data to quantify the potential and actual impacts of forest change on land surface temperature (LST) from 2003 to 2013. The potential effect of forest change on temperature is calculated by the LST difference between forest and nearby nonforest land, whereas the actual impact on temperature is quantified by the LST trend difference between deforested (afforested) and nearby unchanged forest (nonforest land) over several years. The good agreement found between potential and actual impacts both at annual and seasonal levels indicates that forest change can have detectable impacts on surface temperature trends. That impact, however, is different for maximum and minimum temperatures. Overall, deforestation caused a significant warming up to 0.28 K/decade on average temperature trends in tropical regions, a cooling up to −0.55 K/decade in boreal regions, a weak impact in the northern temperate regions, and strong warming (up to 0.32 K/decade) in the southern temperate regions. Afforestation induced an opposite impact on temperature trends. The magnitude of the estimated temperature impacts depends on both the threshold and the data set (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and Landsat) by which forest cover change is defined. Such a latitudinal pattern in temperature impact is mainly caused by the competing effects of albedo and evapotranspiration on temperature. The methodology developed here can be used to evaluate the temperature change induced by forest cover change around the globe.

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“…Landuse activities are expected to expand and/or intensify in the future to meet increasing human demands for food, fiber, and energy. From a broad perspective, the biogeophysical impacts of land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) on climate are relatively well understood, with observational and modeling studies tending to agree that deforestation has led and will lead to cooling in high latitudes and warming in the tropics, with more uncertain changes in the mid-latitudes (e.g., Bonan, 2008;Davin and de Noblet-Ducoudré, 2010;Lee et al, 2011;Li et al, 2016;Pielke et al, 2011;Swann et al, 2012). The impact of land-cover change on, for example, global mean surface air temperature, has been and is projected to continue to be relatively small Lawrence et al, 2012), but, regionally, climate change due to deforestation can be as large as or larger than that resulting from increases in greenhouse gas emissions .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Land Use Model Intercomparison Project (LUMIP) contribution to CMIP6: rationale and experimental design

et al. 2016

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Abstract. Human land-use activities have resulted in large changes to the Earth's surface, with resulting implications for climate. In the future, land-use activities are likely to expand and intensify further to meet growing demands for food, fiber, and energy. The Land Use Model Intercomparison Project (LUMIP) aims to further advance understanding of the impacts of land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) on climate, specifically addressing the following questions.(1) What are the effects of LULCC on climate and biogeochemical cycling (past-future)? (2) What are the impacts of land management on surface fluxes of carbon, water, and energy, and are there regional land-management strategies with the promise to help mitigate climate change? In addressing these questions, LUMIP will also address a range of more detailed science questions to get at process-level attribution, uncertainty, data requirements, and other related issues in more depth and sophistication than possible in a multi-model context to date. There will be particular focus on the separation and quantification of the effects on climate from LULCC relative to all forcings, separation of biogeochemical from biogeophysical effects of land use, the unique impacts of land-cover change vs. land-management change, modulation of land-use impact on climate by land-atmosphere coupling strength, and the extent to which impacts of enhanced CO 2 concentrations on plant photosynthesis are modulated by past and future land use.LUMIP involves three major sets of science activities: (1) development of an updated and expanded historical and future land-use data set, (2) an experimental protocol for specific LUMIP experiments for CMIP6, and (3) definition of metrics and diagnostic protocols that quantify model performance, and related sensitivities, with respect to LULCC. In this paper, we describe LUMIP activity (2), i.e., the LU-MIP simulations that will formally be part of CMIP6. These experiments are explicitly designed to be complementary to simulations requested in the CMIP6 DECK and historical simulations and other CMIP6 MIPs including ScenarioMIP, C4MIP, LS3MIP, and DAMIP. LUMIP includes a twophase experimental design. Phase one features idealized coupled and land-only model simulations designed to advance process-level understanding of LULCC impacts on climate, as well as to quantify model sensitivity to potential landcover and land-use change. Phase two experiments focus on quantification of the historic impact of land use and the poPublished by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. tential for future land management decisions to aid in mitigation of climate change. This paper documents these simulations in detail, explains their rationale, outlines plans for analysis, and describes a new subgrid land-use tile data request for selected variables (reporting model output data separately for primary and secondary land, crops, pasture, and urban land-use types). It is essential that modeling groups participating in LUMIP adhere to t...

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The role of spatial scale and background climate in the latitudinal temperature response to deforestation

Cited by 70 publications

References 53 publications

Local Effects of Forests on Temperatures across Europe

Local Effects of Forests on Temperatures across Europe

Potential and Actual impacts of deforestation and afforestation on land surface temperature

The Land Use Model Intercomparison Project (LUMIP) contribution to CMIP6: rationale and experimental design

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