Impacts of Simulated Deforestation on Meteorology and Primary Productivity in Appalachian Deciduous Forests Using WRF With Noah‐MP

Abstract Changes in land cover can impact local and synoptic meteorology, and subsequently, ecological processes. Using a coupled atmosphere and land surface model (WRF and Noah‐MP), we quantified how simulated deforestation events of varying extent (approximately 4,000–18,000 ), continuity, and orientation, impact meteorology and gross primary productivity (GPP) in surrounding intact forest (approximately 90,000 ) in Southern Appalachia, North America. Substantially altered conditions within areas of deforestation, primarily horizontal wind speed, vapor pressure deficit, and soil moisture, create pronounced, radially variable, edge effects in both meteorology and GPP in the surrounding intact forest, conditional on the size, extent, and orientation of deforestation. In a comparatively dry year, deforestation amplifies spatial variation in both soil moisture and GPP, but mutes it in a comparatively wet year. In general, deforestation tends to amplify preexisting spatial variation in vegetation temperature and vapor pressure deficit, and mute variation in absorbed solar radiation. When averaged across space and over the growing season, deforestation has minimal impact on solar radiation absorbed by trees, vegetation temperature, vapor pressure deficit, soil moisture, and gross primary productivity, in both comparatively dry and wet years. However, deforestation impacts extend far beyond the area of deforestation, and such impacts compounded over multiple growing seasons have the potential to alter the balance between light and water limitation in Appalachian forests.