The potential of an increased deciduous forest fraction to mitigate the effects of heat extremes in Europe

Breil, Marcus; Weber, Annabell; Pinto, Joaquim G.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-2237-2023

Articles | Volume 20, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-2237-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-2237-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 12

Research article

|

20 Jun 2023

Research article |

| 20 Jun 2023

The potential of an increased deciduous forest fraction to mitigate the effects of heat extremes in Europe

Marcus Breil, Annabell Weber, and Joaquim G. Pinto

Data sets

LUCAS LUC historical land use and land cover change dataset for Europe (Version 1.1) P. Hoffmann, V. Reinhart, and D. Rechid https://doi.org/10.26050/WDCC/LUC_hist_EU_v1.1

ERA5 hourly data on single levels from 1940 to present H. Hersbach, B. Bell, P. Berrisford, G. Biavati, A. Horányi, J. Muñoz Sabater, J. Nicolas, C. Peubey, R. Radu, I. Rozum, D. Schepers, A. Simmons, C. Soci, D. Dee, and J.-N. Thépaut https://doi.org/10.24381/cds.adbb2d47

Short summary

A promising strategy for mitigating burdens of heat extremes in Europe is to replace dark coniferous forests with brighter deciduous forests. The consequence of this would be reduced absorption of solar radiation, which should reduce the intensities of heat periods. In this study, we show that deciduous forests have a certain cooling effect on heat period intensities in Europe. However, the magnitude of the temperature reduction is quite small.