Abstract
Abstract. The Land Use and Climate Across Scales Flagship Pilot Study (LUCAS FPS) is a coordinated community effort to improve the integration of land use change (LUC) in regional climate models (RCMs) and to quantify the biogeophysical effects of LUC on local to regional climate in Europe. In the first phase of LUCAS, nine RCMs are used to explore the biogeophysical impacts of re-/afforestation over Europe: two idealized experiments representing respectively a non-forested and a maximally forested Europe are compared in order to quantify spatial and temporal variations in the regional climate sensitivity to forestation. We find some robust features in the simulated response to forestation. In particular, all models indicate a year-round decrease in surface albedo, which is most pronounced in winter and spring at high latitudes. This results in a winter warming effect, with values ranging from +0.2 to +1 K on average over Scandinavia depending on models. However, there are also a number of strongly diverging responses. For instance, there is no agreement on the sign of temperature changes in summer with some RCMs predicting a widespread cooling from forestation (well below −2 K in most regions), a widespread warming (around +2 K or above in most regions) or a mixed response. A large part of the inter-model spread is attributed to the representation of land processes. In particular, differences in the partitioning of sensible and latent heat are identified as a key source of uncertainty in summer. Atmospheric processes, such as changes in incoming radiation due to cloud cover feedbacks, also influence the simulated response in most seasons. In conclusion, the multi-model approach we use here has the potential to deliver more robust and reliable information to stakeholders involved in land use planning, as compared to results based on single models. However, given the contradictory responses identified, our results also show that there are still fundamental uncertainties that need to be tackled to better anticipate the possible intended or unintended consequences of LUC on regional climates.
Highlights
Land use change (LUC) affects climate through biogeophysical processes influencing surface albedo, evapotranspiration and surface roughness (Bonan, 2008; Davin and de NobletDucoudré, 2010)
LUC forcings were not included in previous regional climate model (RCM) intercomparisons (Christensen and Christensen, 2007; Jacob et al, 2014; Mearns et al, 2012; Solman et al, 2013), which are the basis for numerous regional climate change assessments providing information for impact studies and the design of adaptation plans (Gutowski Jr. et al, 2016)
Land Use and Climate Across Scales (LUCAS) is endorsed as a Flagship Pilot Study (FPS) by the World Climate Research Program-Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (WCRP-CORDEX) and was initiated by the European branch of CORDEX (EUROCORDEX) (Rechid et al, 2017)
Summary
Land use change (LUC) affects climate through biogeophysical processes influencing surface albedo, evapotranspiration and surface roughness (Bonan, 2008; Davin and de NobletDucoudré, 2010) The quantification of these effects is still subject to large uncertainties, but there is growing evidence that LUC is an important driver of climate change at local to regional scales. Results from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) confirmed the importance of LUC for regional climate trends and for temperature extremes (Kumar et al, 2013; Lejeune et al, 2017, 2018) In this light, it is important to represent LUC forcings in global climate models and in regional climate simulations. LUCAS is designed in successive phases that will go from idealized to realistic high-resolution scenarios and intends to cover both land cover changes and land management impacts
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