Open AccessLocal and teleconnected temperature effects of afforestation and vegetation greening in China
Author(s) -
Yue Li,
Shilong Piao,
Anping Chen,
Philippe Ciais,
Zhaoxin Li
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
national science review/national science review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.433
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 2095-5138
pISSN - 2053-714X
DOI - 10.1093/nsr/nwz132
Subject(s) - afforestation , environmental science , vegetation (pathology) , climatology , greening , geopotential height , climate change , physical geography , arctic oscillation , spring (device) , atmospheric sciences , geography , precipitation , northern hemisphere , geology , ecology , meteorology , agroforestry , oceanography , medicine , pathology , biology , mechanical engineering , engineering
Afforestation in China provides carbon sequestration and prevents soil erosion, but its remote impacts on climate in other regions via the coupling of forest energy fluxes with atmospheric circulation are largely unknown. Here, we prescribe inventory-based forest cover change and satellite-observed leaf area index from 1982 to 2011 in a coupled land-atmosphere model to simulate their biophysical climate effects. Both local and global surface air temperatures show a seasonal contrast in response to past vegetation cover expansion over China: a phenomenon we primarily attribute to a variation of seasonality of vegetation greening. A large cooling in spring results in concurrent decreases in geopotential height over China and zonal wind over Mongolia, causing a dipole structure in the upper troposphere over the Arctic. This accounts for ∼58% of simulated spring warming over the Russian Arctic and ∼61% of simulated spring cooling over the Canadian Artic. Our results imply that spring vegetation dynamics in China may affect climate in northern high latitudes.