Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Human land-use-driven reduction of forest volatiles cools global climate

Nature Climate Change volume 4, pages 907–910 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Human conversion of forest ecosystems to agriculture is a major driver of global change. Conventionally, the impacts of the historical cropland expansion on Earth’s radiation balance have been quantified through two opposing effects: the release of stored carbon to the atmosphere as CO2 (warming) versus the increase in surface albedo (cooling)1. Changing forest cover has a third effect on the global radiation balance by altering emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) that control the loadings of multiple warming and cooling climate pollutants: tropospheric ozone (O3), methane (CH4) and aerosols. Although human land cover change has dominated BVOC emission variability over the past century2,3,4, the net effect on global climate has not been quantified. Here, I show that the effects of the global cropland expansion between the 1850s and 2000s on BVOC emissions and atmospheric chemistry have imposed an additional net global radiative impact of −0.11 ± 0.17 W m−2 (cooling). This magnitude is comparable to that of the surface albedo and land carbon release effects. I conclude that atmospheric chemistry must be considered in climate impact assessments of anthropogenic land cover change and in forestry for climate protection strategies.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Global climate effects of historical cropland expansion (W m−2).
Figure 2: Spatial distribution of radiative forcing by climate pollutants due to historical cropland expansion (mW m−2).

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Myhre, G. et al. in Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis (ed Stocker, T. F. et al.) Ch. 8, (IPCC, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Lathiere, J., Hewitt, C. N. & Beerling, D. J. Sensitivity of isoprene emissions from the terrestrial biosphere to 20th century changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration, climate, and land use. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles 24, GB1004 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Pacifico, F., Folberth, G. A., Jones, C. D., Harrison, S. P. & Collins, W. J. Sensitivity of biogenic isoprene emissions to past, present, and future environmental conditions and implications for atmospheric chemistry. J. Geophys. Res. 117, D22302 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Unger, N. Isoprene emission variability through the twentieth century. J. Geophys. Res. 118, 13606–13613 (2013).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Hurtt, G. C. et al. Harmonization of land-use scenarios for the period 1500–2100: 600 years of global gridded annual land-use transitions, wood harvest, and resulting secondary lands. Climatic Change 109, 117–161 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Brovkin, V. et al. Role of land cover changes for atmospheric CO2 increase and climate change during the last 150 years. Glob. Change Biol. 10, 1253–1266 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Pongratz, J., Reick, C. H., Raddatz, T. & Claussen, M. Biogeophysical versus biogeochemical climate response to historical anthropogenic land cover change. Geophys. Res. Lett. 37, L08702 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Findell, K. L., Shevliakova, E., Milly, P. C. D. & Stouffer, R. J. Modeled impact of anthropogenic land cover change on climate. J. Clim. 20, 3621–3634 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Pitman, A. J. et al. Uncertainties in climate responses to past land cover change: First results from the LUCID intercomparison study. Geophys. Res. Lett. 36, L14814 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Guenther, A. B. et al. The Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature version 2.1 (MEGAN2.1): An extended and updated framework for modeling biogenic emissions. Geosci. Model Dev. 5, 1471–1492 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Arneth, A. et al. From biota to chemistry and climate: Towards a comprehensive description of trace gas exchange between the biosphere and atmosphere. Biogeosciences 7, 121–149 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Shindell, D. T. et al. Improved attribution of climate forcing to emissions. Science 326, 716–718 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Lamarque, J. F. et al. Historical (1850–2000) gridded anthropogenic and biomass burning emissions of reactive gases and aerosols: Methodology and application. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 10, 7017–7039 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Unger, N. et al. Attribution of climate forcing to economic sectors. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 3382–3387 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. O’Donnell, D., Tsigaridis, K. & Feichter, J. Estimating the direct and indirect effects of secondary organic aerosols using ECHAM5-HAM. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 11, 8635–8659 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Scott, C. E. et al. The direct and indirect radiative effects of biogenic secondary organic aerosol. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 14, 447–470 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Kiendler-Scharr, A. et al. New particle formation in forests inhibited by isoprene emissions. Nature 461, 381–384 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Arneth, A. et al. Terrestrial biogeochemical feedbacks in the climate system. Nature Geosci. 3, 525–532 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Ganzeveld, L. et al. Impact of future land use and land cover changes on atmospheric chemistry–climate interactions. J. Geophys. Res. 115, D23301 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Ashworth, K., Folberth, G., Hewitt, C. N. & Wild, O. Impacts of near-future cultivation of biofuel feedstocks on atmospheric composition and local air quality. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 12, 919–939 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Paulot, F. et al. Unexpected epoxide formation in the gas-phase photooxidation of isoprene. Science 325, 730–733 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Crounse, J. D., Paulot, F., Kjaergaard, H. G. & Wennberg, P. O. Peroxy radical isomerization in the oxidation of isoprene. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 13, 13607–13613 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Schmidt, G. A. et al. Configuration and assessment of the GISS ModelE2 contributions to the CMIP5 archive. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 6, 141–184 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Unger, N. et al. Photosynthesis-dependent isoprene emission from leaf to planet in a global carbon–chemistry–climate model. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 13, 10243–10269 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Shindell, D. T. et al. Interactive ozone and methane chemistry in GISS-E2 historical and future climate simulations. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 13, 2653–2689 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Griffin, R. J., Cocker, D. R., Seinfeld, J. H. & Dabdub, D. Estimate of global atmospheric organic aerosol from oxidation of biogenic hydrocarbons. Geophys. Res. Lett. 26, 2721–2724 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Mao, J. et al. Insights into hydroxyl measurements and atmospheric oxidation in a California forest. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 12, 8009–8020 (2012).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Mao, J. et al. Ozone and organic nitrates over the eastern United States: Sensitivity to isoprene chemistry. J. Geophys. Res. 118, 11256–11268 (2013).

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Lathiere, J. et al. Impact of climate variability and land use changes on global biogenic volatile organic compound emissions. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 6, 2129–2146 (2006).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. Rayner, N. A. et al. Improved analyses of changes and uncertainties in sea surface temperature measured in situ since the mid-nineteenth century: The HadSST2 dataset. J. Clim. 19, 446–469 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Funding for this research was provided by the Leverhulme Trust (UK). This project was supported in part by the facilities and staff of the Yale University Faculty of Arts and Sciences High Performance Computing Center. The author thanks P. A. Raymond and O. J. Schmitz.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA

    Nadine Unger

Authors
  1. Nadine Unger
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

N.U. conceived the study, conducted the global model simulations, analysed the model output and wrote the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nadine Unger.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Unger, N. Human land-use-driven reduction of forest volatiles cools global climate. Nature Clim Change 4, 907–910 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2347

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2347

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing