Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 109, Issue 3, Pages 712-716Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1116706108
Keywords
ecoclimate; ecosystem-climate interactions; energy budget; land use change; land cover change
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [ATM-0628678]
- Office of Science (Biological and Environmental Research), U.S. Department of Energy [DE-FG02-08ER64588]
- Italy's Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea
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We show in climate model experiments that large-scale afforestation in northern mid-latitudes warms the Northern Hemisphere and alters global circulation patterns. An expansion of dark forests increases the absorption of solar energy and increases surface temperature, particularly in regions where the land surface is unable to compensate with latent heat flux due to water limitation. Atmospheric circulation redistributes the anomalous energy absorbed in the northern hemisphere, in particular toward the south, through altering the Hadley circulation, resulting in the northward displacement of the tropical rain bands. Precipitation decreases over parts of the Amazon basin affecting productivity and increases over the Sahel and Sahara regions in Africa. We find that the response of climate to afforestation in mid-latitudes is determined by the amount of soil moisture available to plants with the greatest warming found in water-limited regions. Mid-latitude afforestation is found to have a small impact on modeled global temperatures and on global CO2, but regional heating from the increase in forest cover is capable of driving unintended changes in circulation and precipitation. The ability of vegetation to affect remote circulation has implications for strategies for climate mitigation.
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