Why does the locally induced temperature response to land cover change differ across scenarios?

Abstract

Land cover change (LCC) affects temperature locally. The underlying biogeophysical effects are influenced not only by land use (location and extent) but also by natural biogeographic shifts and background climate. We examine the contributions of these three factors to surface temperature changes upon LCC and compare them across Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) scenarios. To this end, we perform global deforestation simulations with an Earth system model to deduce locally induced changes in surface temperature for historical and projected forest cover changes. We find that the dominant factors differ between historical and future scenarios: the local temperature response is historically dominated by the factor land use change, but the two other factors become just as important in scenarios of future land use and climate. An additional factor contributing to differences across scenarios is the dependence on the extent of forests before LCC happens: For most locations, the temperature response is strongest when starting deforestation from low forest cover fractions.