Enhanced local cooling effects of forests across the globe

Abstract

Forests cool the land surface in warm regions and warm the land surface in cool regions. Because these local temperature buffering effects depend on background climate1,2, increasingly large areas might experience forest cooling effects as the climate warms3-5. Here, using statistical modeling, we quantified changes in the sensitivity of land surface temperatures6 to forest cover change7 from 1988 - 2016, across 15 million km2 of land area. Forests had a local cooling effect on day and night surface temperatures in 86.3% (72 million km2) and 61.6% (5,108 million km2) of the forest area, respectively. This area has increased by 0.3% (0.2 million km2) at day and 4.7% (2 million km2) at night over recent decades. Our study indicates that climate change is enhancing the cooling effect of forests in the short term, underscoring the importance of protecting natural, diverse forest ecosystems in the face of rising global temperatures that threaten ecosystems8,9, human health10,11, and food production12.