IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v13y2022i1d10.1038_s41467-022-28161-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Contrasting impacts of forests on cloud cover based on satellite observations

Author

Listed:
  • Ru Xu

    (Beijing Normal University
    Beijing Normal University)

  • Yan Li

    (Beijing Normal University
    Beijing Normal University)

  • Adriaan J. Teuling

    (Wageningen University and Research)

  • Lei Zhao

    (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

  • Dominick V. Spracklen

    (University of Leeds)

  • Luis Garcia-Carreras

    (University of Manchester)

  • Ronny Meier

    (Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich
    Umweltschutz, Stadt Luzern)

  • Liang Chen

    (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

  • Youtong Zheng

    (Princeton University
    NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab)

  • Huiqing Lin

    (Beijing Normal University
    Beijing Normal University)

  • Bojie Fu

    (Beijing Normal University
    Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Abstract

Forests play a pivotal role in regulating climate and sustaining the hydrological cycle. The biophysical impacts of forests on clouds, however, remain unclear. Here, we use satellite data to show that forests in different regions have opposite effects on summer cloud cover. We find enhanced clouds over most temperate and boreal forests but inhibited clouds over Amazon, Central Africa, and Southeast US. The spatial variation in the sign of cloud effects is driven by sensible heating, where cloud enhancement is more likely to occur over forests with larger sensible heat, and cloud inhibition over forests with smaller sensible heat. Ongoing forest cover loss has led to cloud increase over forest loss hotspots in the Amazon (+0.78%), Indonesia (+1.19%), and Southeast US (+ 0.09%), but cloud reduction in East Siberia (-0.20%) from 2002-2018. Our data-driven assessment improves mechanistic understanding of forest-cloud interactions, which remain uncertain in Earth system models.

Suggested Citation

  • Ru Xu & Yan Li & Adriaan J. Teuling & Lei Zhao & Dominick V. Spracklen & Luis Garcia-Carreras & Ronny Meier & Liang Chen & Youtong Zheng & Huiqing Lin & Bojie Fu, 2022. "Contrasting impacts of forests on cloud cover based on satellite observations," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-28161-7
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28161-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28161-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-022-28161-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yitao Li & Zhao-Liang Li & Hua Wu & Chenghu Zhou & Xiangyang Liu & Pei Leng & Peng Yang & Wenbin Wu & Ronglin Tang & Guo-Fei Shang & Lingling Ma, 2023. "Biophysical impacts of earth greening can substantially mitigate regional land surface temperature warming," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. Jun Ge & Qi Liu & Beilei Zan & Zhiqiang Lin & Sha Lu & Bo Qiu & Weidong Guo, 2022. "Deforestation intensifies daily temperature variability in the northern extratropics," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, December.
    3. Raphael Portmann & Urs Beyerle & Edouard Davin & Erich M. Fischer & Steven Hertog & Sebastian Schemm, 2022. "Global forestation and deforestation affect remote climate via adjusted atmosphere and ocean circulation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-11, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:13:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-022-28161-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.