Abstract

BackgroundA regional-scale sensitivity study has been carried out to investigate the climatic effects of forest cover change in Europe. Applying REMO (regional climate model of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology), the projected temperature and precipitation tendencies have been analysed for summer, based on the results of the A2 IPCC-SRES emission scenario simulation. For the end of the 21st century it has been studied, whether the assumed forest cover increase could reduce the effects of the greenhouse gas concentration change.ResultsBased on the simulation results, biogeophysical effects of the hypothetic potential afforestation may lead to cooler and moister conditions during summer in most parts of the temperate zone. The largest relative effects of forest cover increase can be expected in northern Germany, Poland and Ukraine, which is 15–20% of the climate change signal for temperature and more than 50% for precipitation. In northern Germany and France, potential afforestation may enhance the effects of emission change, resulting in more severe heavy precipitation events. The probability of dry days and warm temperature extremes would decrease.ConclusionsLarge contiguous forest blocks can have distinctive biogeophysical effect on the climate on regional and local scale. In certain regions of the temperate zone, climate change signal due to greenhouse gas emission can be reduced by afforestation due to the dominant evaporative cooling effect during summer. Results of this case study with a hypothetical land cover change can contribute to the assessment of the role of forests in adapting to climate change. Thus they can build an important basis of the future forest policy.

Highlights

  • A regional-scale sensitivity study has been carried out to investigate the climatic effects of forest cover change in Europe

  • In Canadian and Hungarian areas at the forest-steppe border forests showed a cooling and moistening effect on climate, may contribute to the drought mitigation [38,39]. These results indicate that climatic effects of forests are determined by various contrasting feedbacks

  • To quantify the sensitivity of the model to changes in land cover, a hypothetic potential afforestation simulation has been prepared for the period 2071–2090 (Table 1, Figure 2)

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Summary

Introduction

A regional-scale sensitivity study has been carried out to investigate the climatic effects of forest cover change in Europe. All regional climate projections agree that at the end of the 21st century, a warming is expected in all seasons over Europe. The spatial patterns of the temperature changes in summer indicate the largest increase in the Mediterranean region, Southern France and over the Iberian Peninsula, while less warming is projected over Scandinavia [4,5]. Whereas in Northern to North-Eastern Europe the number of days with intense precipitation is very likely to increase, which can result in a rise in flood frequencies [8,14,15,16]. The Central-Mediterranean and Central-Western Europe seem to be especially vulnerable to increases in both summer drought and flood [12,14]

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