Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Climate Effects of Global Land Cover Change

Journal Article · · Geophysical Research Letters
; ; ; ;
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.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
W-7405-ENG-48
OSTI ID:
877856
Report Number(s):
UCRL-JRNL-215046
Journal Information:
Geophysical Research Letters, Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 32; ISSN GPRLAJ; ISSN 0094-8276
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (17)

On the non-linear response of the ocean thermohaline circulation to global deforestation: EFFECT OF GLOBAL DEFORESTATION journal January 2003
Combined Effects of Deforestation and Doubled Atmospheric CO 2 Concentrations on the Climate of Amazonia journal January 2000
Land use changes and northern hemisphere cooling journal January 2001
Effects of land use change on North American climate: impact of surface datasets and model biogeophysics journal May 2004
Analyzing the effects of complete tropical forest removal on the regional climate using a detailed three-dimensional energy budget: An application to Africa: TROPICAL FOREST REMOVAL journal November 2004
Implications of tropical deforestation for regional and global hydroclimate book January 2004
Modelling climate response to historical land cover change: GCTE/LUCC RESEARCH LETTER journal November 1999
The missing climate forcing journal February 1997
Influence of vegetation on the local climate and hydrology in the tropics: sensitivity to soil parameters journal May 2004
Biogeophysical versus biogeochemical feedbacks of large-scale land cover change journal March 2001
Transport and storage of CO2 in the ocean ??an inorganic ocean-circulation carbon cycle model journal August 1987
Observational Evidence for Reduction of Daily Maximum Temperature by Croplands in the Midwest United States journal June 2001
The Land Surface Climatology of the Community Land Model Coupled to the NCAR Community Climate Model* journal November 2002
Suppressing Impacts of the Amazonian Deforestation by the Global Circulation Change journal October 2001
A Green Planet versus a Desert World: Estimating the Effect of Vegetation Extremes on the Atmosphere journal October 1999
Offset of the potential carbon sink from boreal forestation by decreases in surface albedo journal November 2000
Land-use change and water losses: the case of grassland afforestation across a soil textural gradient in central Argentina journal July 2005

Similar Records

Combined Climate and Carbon-Cycle Effects of Large-Scale Deforestation
Journal Article · Tue Oct 17 00:00:00 EDT 2006 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, N/A, no. 16, April 17, 2007, pp. 6550-6555 · OSTI ID:907848
Data from: Evapotranspiration is resilient in the face of land cover and climate change in a humid temperate catchment
Dataset · Fri Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · OSTI ID:1873900
Evapotranspiration is resilient in the face of land cover and climate change in a humid temperate catchment
Journal Article · Sun Feb 11 19:00:00 EST 2018 · Hydrological Processes · OSTI ID:1459429

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
58 GEOSCIENCES
ALBEDO
CARBON
CLIMATES
FORESTS
GENERAL CIRCULATION MODELS
GREENHOUSE EFFECT
HEATING
MITIGATION
PLANTS
RANGELANDS
STORAGE
TREES