TY - JOUR
T1 - Contrasting impacts of forests on cloud cover based on satellite observations
AU - Xu, Ru
AU - Li, Yan
AU - Teuling, Adriaan J.
AU - Zhao, Lei
AU - Spracklen, Dominick V.
AU - Garcia-Carreras, Luis
AU - Meier, Ronny
AU - Chen, Liang
AU - Zheng, Youtong
AU - Lin, Huiqing
AU - Fu, Bojie
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - Forests play a pivotal role in regulating climate and sustaining the hydrological cycle. The biophysical impacts of forests on clouds, however, remain unclear. Here, we use satellite data to show that forests in different regions have opposite effects on summer cloud cover. We find enhanced clouds over most temperate and boreal forests but inhibited clouds over Amazon, Central Africa, and Southeast US. The spatial variation in the sign of cloud effects is driven by sensible heating, where cloud enhancement is more likely to occur over forests with larger sensible heat, and cloud inhibition over forests with smaller sensible heat. Ongoing forest cover loss has led to cloud increase over forest loss hotspots in the Amazon (+0.78%), Indonesia (+1.19%), and Southeast US (+ 0.09%), but cloud reduction in East Siberia (-0.20%) from 2002-2018. Our data-driven assessment improves mechanistic understanding of forest-cloud interactions, which remain uncertain in Earth system models.
AB - Forests play a pivotal role in regulating climate and sustaining the hydrological cycle. The biophysical impacts of forests on clouds, however, remain unclear. Here, we use satellite data to show that forests in different regions have opposite effects on summer cloud cover. We find enhanced clouds over most temperate and boreal forests but inhibited clouds over Amazon, Central Africa, and Southeast US. The spatial variation in the sign of cloud effects is driven by sensible heating, where cloud enhancement is more likely to occur over forests with larger sensible heat, and cloud inhibition over forests with smaller sensible heat. Ongoing forest cover loss has led to cloud increase over forest loss hotspots in the Amazon (+0.78%), Indonesia (+1.19%), and Southeast US (+ 0.09%), but cloud reduction in East Siberia (-0.20%) from 2002-2018. Our data-driven assessment improves mechanistic understanding of forest-cloud interactions, which remain uncertain in Earth system models.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85124058813&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85124058813&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-022-28161-7
DO - 10.1038/s41467-022-28161-7
M3 - Article
C2 - 35115519
AN - SCOPUS:85124058813
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 13
JO - Nature communications
JF - Nature communications
IS - 1
M1 - 670
ER -