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Universität Hohenheim
Institut für Physik und Meteorologie
Afforestation is considered as an important mitigation strategy to limit the rise of the global temperatures below 2°C. However, besides its beneficial effect on the global greenhouse gas concentrations, afforestation additionally changes the biogeophysical characteristics of the land surface (albedo, roughness, leaf area, etc.). Due to the darker surface of forests in comparison to other vegetation types, more solar radiation is absorbed. But since this increased energy input is efficiently transported into the atmosphere (higher roughness, more transpiration), surface temperatures remain colder, reducing in turn the outgoing long-wave radiation of forests. In combination with the increased absorption of solar radiation, this leads to an overall warming effect of afforestation in Europe. In order to reduce these negative effects on the European climate, new afforestation strategies are developed in this project and tested within global climate simulations with the ICON model.