Historical deforestation locally increased the intensity of hot days in northern mid-latitudes

Quentin Lejeune (), Edouard L. Davin, Lukas Gudmundsson, Johannes Winckler and Sonia I. Seneviratne
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Quentin Lejeune: ETH Zurich
Edouard L. Davin: ETH Zurich
Lukas Gudmundsson: ETH Zurich
Johannes Winckler: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
Sonia I. Seneviratne: ETH Zurich

Nature Climate Change, 2018, vol. 8, issue 5, 386-390

Abstract: Abstract The effects of past land-cover changes on climate are disputed1–3. Previous modelling studies have generally concluded that the biogeophysical effects of historical deforestation led to an annual mean cooling in the northern mid-latitudes3,4, in line with the albedo-induced negative radiative forcing from land-cover changes since pre-industrial time reported in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report 5 . However, further observational and modelling studies have highlighted strong seasonal and diurnal contrasts in the temperature response to deforestation6–10. Here, we show that historical deforestation has led to a substantial local warming of hot days over the northern mid-latitudes—a finding that contrasts with most previous model results11,12. Based on observation-constrained state-of-the-art climate-model experiments, we estimate that moderate reductions in tree cover in these regions have contributed at least one-third of the local present-day warming of the hottest day of the year since pre-industrial time, and were responsible for most of this warming before 1980. These results emphasize that land-cover changes need to be considered when studying past and future changes in heat extremes, and highlight a potentially overlooked co-benefit of forest-based carbon mitigation through local biogeophysical mechanisms.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41558-018-0131-z

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