European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, Ispra, Italy.
Science. 2016 Feb 5;351(6273):600-4. doi: 10.1126/science.aac8083.
Changes in forest cover affect the local climate by modulating the land-atmosphere fluxes of energy and water. The magnitude of this biophysical effect is still debated in the scientific community and currently ignored in climate treaties. Here we present an observation-driven assessment of the climate impacts of recent forest losses and gains, based on Earth observations of global forest cover and land surface temperatures. Our results show that forest losses amplify the diurnal temperature variation and increase the mean and maximum air temperature, with the largest signal in arid zones, followed by temperate, tropical, and boreal zones. In the decade 2003-2012, variations of forest cover generated a mean biophysical warming on land corresponding to about 18% of the global biogeochemical signal due to CO2 emission from land-use change.
森林覆盖的变化通过调节能量和水的土地-大气通量来影响当地气候。这种生物物理效应的大小在科学界仍存在争议，目前在气候条约中被忽视。在这里，我们基于对全球森林覆盖和陆面温度的地球观测，提出了对最近森林损失和增加的气候影响的观测驱动评估。我们的结果表明，森林损失会放大日温度变化，并增加平均和最高空气温度，在干旱地区信号最大，其次是温带、热带和北方地区。在 2003 年至 2012 年期间，森林覆盖的变化导致陆地上的平均生物物理变暖，相当于由于土地利用变化导致 CO2 排放而产生的全球生物地球化学信号的约 18%。
