Regional temperature response to different forest development stages in Fennoscandia explored with a regional climate model ...

• Main Authors: Huang, Bo, Li, Yan, Zhang, Xia, Tan, Chunping, Hu, Xiangping, Cherubini, Francesco
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Freie Universität Berlin 2024
• Subjects: Forest management; Regional climate model; Land cover change; Climate change; Temperature decomposition; 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik550 Geowissenschaften, Geologie551 Geologie, Hydrologie, Meteorologie; Fennoscandia
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-43849; https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/handle/fub188/44139

Several studies investigated the regional temperature effects of afforestation or deforestation, but the impacts of different forest development stages or alternative forest management received limited attention. This is mainly due to challenges in representing area-limited forest dynamics in low-resolution climate models and the need for accurate forest parameters. This study investigates the impact of alternative forest development stages and composition on regional climate in Fennoscandia using a coupled regional climate model. By incorporating realistic and high-resolution forest maps, our modelling framework reduces biases in estimating surface temperature compared to default model runs. If today's forest composition of tree species is left to achieve a mature state (a proxy for the absence of harvesting), an annual mean reduction in 2 m air temperature is estimated, with a cooling peak in summer of -0.53 ± 0.20 °C (mean ± standard deviation) mainly induced by increased cloud cover. Conversely, ...