Local and teleconnected temperature effects of afforestation and vegetation greening in China

• Published in: National Science Review
• Main Authors: Li, Yue, Piao, Shilong, Chen, Anping, Ciais, Philippe, Li, Laurent
• Other Authors: Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University Beijing, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing (CAS), Colorado State University Fort Collins (CSU), Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement Gif-sur-Yvette (LSCE), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris-Saclay-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Direction de Recherche Fondamentale (CEA) (DRF (CEA)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), Institut Pierre-Simon-Laplace (IPSL (FR_636)), École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité), Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539) (LMD), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-École polytechnique (X)-École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Département des Géosciences - ENS Paris, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-École normale supérieure - Paris (ENS-PSL), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL), ANR-15-CE01-0011,CHINA-TREND-STREAM,Tendances des deux grands fleuves Chinois, effets de l'usage des sols et du changement climatique(2015)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2020
• Subjects: afforestation; vegetation greening; China; biophysical climate effect; coupled land-atmosphere model; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; Arctic
• Online Access: https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-02873046; https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-02873046/document; https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-02873046/file/nwz132.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwz132

International audience Afforestation in China provides carbon sequestration and prevents soil erosion, but its remote impacts on climate in other regions via the coupling of forest energy fluxes with atmospheric circulation are largely unknown. Here, we prescribe inventory-based forest cover change and satellite-observed leaf area index from 1982 to 2011 in a coupled land-atmosphere model to simulate their biophysical climate effects. Both local and global surface air temperatures show a seasonal contrast in response to past vegetation cover expansion over China: a phenomenon we primarily attribute to a variation of seasonality of vegetation greening. A large cooling in spring results in concurrent decreases in geopotential height over China and zonal wind over Mongolia, causing a dipole structure in the upper troposphere over the Arctic. This accounts for ∼58% of simulated spring warming over the Russian Arctic and ∼61% of simulated spring cooling over the Canadian Artic. Our results imply that spring vegetation dynamics in China may affect climate in northern high latitudes.