Amplified local cooling effect of forestation in warming Europe
Forests exhibit local cooling or warming effects compared to adjacent openlands through biophysical processes. These temperature effects are predicted by earth system models to evolve in response to climate change. However, such temporal patterns remain unconstrained by observations and have not been detected in historical records. Here, by comparing the satellite observations of spatially nearby forests and openlands over the last two decades, we quantify temporal trends in local land surface temperature (LST) effects of forest change in Europe. During winter, the daytime warming effect of potential forestation weakens and reverses to cooling (-0.142 K/decade) with decreasing snow cover, as forests show less pronounced surface darkening trends than openlands. During summer, the daytime cooling effect intensifies (-0.188 K/decade) because forests remain more physiologically and hydrologically resilient to increasing soil dryness. These negative trends are broadly supported by state-of-the-art earth system models, though substantial inter-model variability persists. Given continued climate change, we emphasize the need to consider the dynamics of biophysical effects when comprehensive forest-related climate policies are formed.
Authors
- Qian Shi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1276-0352)
- Hua Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5982-8422)
- Wei Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4839-6791)
- Chenghu Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3331-2302)
- Enyu Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7165-1861)
- Si‐Bo Duan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4390-2421)
- Yitao Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7496-2956)
- Ronglin Tang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6963-5010)
- Caixia Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3169-8248)
- Xiaoning Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8867-9016)
- Jun Ge (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8876-1650)
- Yi Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1347-7030)
- Zhao-Liang Li
- Guangjian Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5030-748X)
- Yuanliang Cheng
- Xiangyang Liu
- Pei Leng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9130-5437)
Institutions
- University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Sun Yat-sen University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Beijing Normal University (CN)
- Guangdong Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Guangzhou) (CN)
- Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (CN)
- Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment (CN)
- Aerospace Information Research Institute (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CN)
- Guangzhou Institute of Geography (CN)
- Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science (CN)
- Dalian Maritime University (CN)
- Nanjing University (CN)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-09-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63556-2
- Citations
- 5
- Primary Topic
- Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 5.53