Forest cover loss in the tropics is well known to cause warming at deforested sites, with maximum temperatures being particularly sensitive. Forest loss causes warming by altering local energy balance and surface roughness, local changes that can propagate across a wide range of spatial scales. Consequently, temperature increases result from not only changes in forest cover at a site, but also by the aggregate effects of non-local forest loss. We explored such non-local warming within Brazil's Amazon and Cerrado biomes, the region with the world's single largest amount of forest loss since 2000. Two datasets, one consisting of in-situ air temperature observations and a second, larger dataset consisting of ATs derived from remotely-sensed observations of land surface temperature, were used to quantify changes in maximum temperature due to forest cover loss at varying length-scales. We considered undisturbed forest locations (1 km(2) in extent), and forest loss trends in annuli ('halos'), located 1-2 km, 2-4 km, 4-10 km and 10-50 km from these undisturbed sites. Our research finds significant and substantial non-local warming, suggesting that historical estimates of warming due to forest cover loss under-estimate warming or mis-attribute warming to local change, where non-local changes also influence the pattern of temperature warming.
1.Tufts Univ, Friedman Sch Nutr Sci & Policy, 150 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA 02155 USA 2.Univ Michigan, Sch Environm & Sustainabil, 440 Church St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA 3.Stanford Univ, Dept Earth Syst Sci, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305 USA 4.Univ Calif Berkeley, Dept Civil & Environm Engn, Davis Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA 5.Calif State Univ, Dept Geol, 6000 J St, Sacramento, CA 95819 USA 6.Univ Western Australia, Sch Environm & Agr, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia 7.Univ Western Australia, Dept Civil Environm & Min Engn, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
Recommended Citation:
Cohn, Avery S.,Bhattarai, Nishan,Campolo, Jake,et al. Forest loss in Brazil increases maximum temperatures within 50 km[J]. ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS,2019-01-01,14(8)