Projected surface radiative forcing due to 2000–2050 land-cover land-use albedo change over the eastern United States

Abstract

Satellite-derived contemporary land-cover land-use (LCLU) and albedo data and modeled future LCLU are used to study the impact of LCLU change from 2000 to 2050 on surface albedo and radiative forcing for 19 ecoregions in the eastern United States. The modeled 2000–2050 LCLU changes indicate a future decrease in both agriculture and forested land and an increase in developed land that induces ecoregion radiative forcings ranging from −0.175 to 0.432 W m−2 driven predominately by differences in the area and type of LCLU change. At the regional scale, these projected LCLU changes induce a net negative albedo decrease (−0.001) and a regional positive radiative forcing of 0.112 W m−2. This overall positive forcing (i.e., warming) is almost 4 times greater than that estimated for documented 1973–2000 LCLU albedo change published in a previous study using the same methods.