Potential impacts of forestation on future climate change in Southern Africa. (15th February 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Naik, Myra; Abiodun, Babatunde J.
• Is Part Of: International journal of climatology. Volume 36:Number 14(2016)
• Page Start: 4560
• Page End: 4576
• Publication Date: 2016-02-15
• Subjects: regional climate -- climate change -- forestation -- drought -- Southern Africa; Climatology -- Periodicals; Climat -- Périodiques; Climatologie -- Périodiques; 551.605
• DOI: 10.1002/joc.4652
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0899-8418

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Many studies have projected future climate changes over Southern Africa, but without including the influence of on‐going forestation activities in the region. The present study investigates how the forestation activities may alter the projected climate change. For the study, two regional climate models (RegCM and WRF) were applied to simulate the present‐day climate (1970–2004) and future climate (2030–2064; IPCC RCP 4.5), with and without forestation. The simulations account for the potential impacts of natural bush encroachment and commercial forestation activities over the eastern part of South Africa. The results agree with previous studies that found that the RCP4.5 emission scenario would induce warming over Southern Africa in the future, but the results further indicate that forestation would enhance the warming over the forested area and induce cooling elsewhere. The additional warming over the forested area is due to the albedo effect of the forestation, while the cooling is due to the dynamic feedback of the local warming induced by the forestation. For similar reasons, the forestation would induce wet and dry conditions over different areas in the sub‐continent in the future. As a result of its combined influences on rainfall and temperature, the forestation would enhance summer drought frequency over some areas but reduce it over other areas in Southern Africa. The simulations suggest that using forestation to mitigate the impacts of global warming may produce unintended climate impacts over some areas in Southern Africa. Hence, before embarking on large‐scale forestation, the biophysical effects of forestation in Southern Africa should be weighed against the biogeochemical benefits.