Compounding impact of deforestation on Borneo’s climate during El Niño events

Abstract

Both deforestation and El Niño events influence Borneo’s climate, but their interaction is not well understood. Borneo’s native forest cover decreased by 37.1% between 1980 and 2015 with large areas being replaced by oil palm and a mosaic of plantations and regrowth vegetation. The island is also affected by El Niño events, resulting in severe droughts and fires. Here, we used a high-resolution climate model to simulate and evaluate how deforestation and El Niño episodes interact during the 1980–2016 period. Simulations revealed that deforestation resulted in a warmer and drier climate with the most pronounced changes in the extensively deforested regions of eastern and southern Borneo. Deforestation-linked impacts were more pronounced under El Niño than neutral (non El Niño/La Niña) conditions. Changes in climate mainly corresponded with areas with the most deforestation. There was a significant increase in the frequency of hotter and drier climatic extremes, with the probability distribution of temperature, humidity and aridity shifting from narrow to a broadening distribution. For example, the frequency of 90th percentile of the hot temperatures (defined as average monthly temperatures >28.9 °C) during the dry season increased from 10% for neutral conditions for the 1980 forest cover to 22% for neutral conditions for the 2015 forest cover. For strong El Niño events, the frequency increased from 15.6% to 32.5%. Replacement of intact native forest with oil palm resulted in increased frequency of hot temperatures to 49% for neutral and 74% for El Niño conditions. Hotter and drier conditions are likely to increase tree mortality and forest flammability (and fire-driven deforestation). The continued reduction and fragmentation of Borneo’s forests diminishes the ability to moderate regional climate impacted by larger scale and other regional/local human climate forcings.