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There are two competing effects of global land cover change on climate: an albedo effect which leads to heating when changing from grass/croplands to forest, and an evapotranspiration effect which tends to produce cooling. It is not clear which effect would dominate in a global land cover change scenario. We have performed coupled land/ocean/atmosphere simulations of global land cover change using the NCAR CAM3 atmospheric general circulation model. We find that replacement of current vegetation by trees on a global basis would lead to a global annual mean warming of 1.6 C, nearly 75% of the warming produced under a doubled CO{sub 2} concentration, while global replacement by grasslands would result in a cooling of 0.4 C. These results suggest that more research is necessary before forest carbon storage should be deployed as a mitigation strategy for global warming. In particular, high latitude forests probably have a net warming effect on the Earth's climate.
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| Authors: |
Gibbard, S G;
Caldeira, K;
Bala, G;
Phillips, T;
Wickett, M
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| Publication Date: | 2005 Aug 24 |
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| OSTI Identifier: | 877856 |
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| Report Number(s): | UCRL-JRNL-215046 |
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| DOE Contract Number: | W-7405-ENG-48 |
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| Resource Type: | Journal Article |
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| Resource Relation: | Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters; Journal Volume: 32 |
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| Research Org: | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA |
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| Sponsoring Org: | USDOE |
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| Country of Publication: | United States |
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| Language: | English |
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| Format: | Size: PDF-file: 18 pages; size: 0.2 Mbytes |
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| Other Number(s): | Journal ID: ISSN 0094-8276; GPRLAJ; TRN: US200608%%592 |
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| Subject: | 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; 58 GEOSCIENCES; ALBEDO; CARBON; CLIMATES; FORESTS; GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS; GREENHOUSE EFFECT; HEATING; MITIGATION; PLANTS; RANGELANDS; STORAGE; TREES |
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| Update Date: | 2009 Dec 16 |
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