Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
such as other land use and land cover changes and atmospheric circulations.
Besides, the reclamation of cultivated land in India also influences many other
climatic indicators, such as precipitation and runoff, only some of which have been
taken into account in this study. There may be some uncertainties and interactions
between these indicators and it is necessary to complement the sensitivity analysis
in the forthcoming researches.
7.2 Possible Impacts of Boreal Deforestation on the
Near-Surface Temperature in the European Russia
There have been many researches focusing on the impacts of the high-latitude
boreal deforestation on climate change. As boreal forest is the largest continuous
terrestrial ecosystem in the world, boreal forest has the potential to influence the
climate by altering the radiation budget. Bonan (
2008
) found that loss of boreal
forests provided a positive feedback for glaciation, whereas boreal forest expan-
sion during the mid-Holocene amplified warming. Bathiany et al. (
2010
) identified
that in the future 100 years, the deforestation at the northern latitudes (45-908N)
will lead a decrease of 0.25 C in global annual mean temperature, while the
afforestation had equally large warming effects combining both biochemical and
biophysical effects. And through latitude-specific large-scale deforestation exper-
iment, Bala et al. revealed that the difference of the global average temperature
between the standard case without deforestation and the experiment with boreal
deforestation at high latitude in year 2100 is -0.8 C (Bala et al.
2007
). Based on
observations, Lee et al. found that for the site pairs at 458N, the mean annual
temperature difference induced by deforestation is 0.85 ± 0.44 C(± mean
standard deviation) (Lee et al.
2011
). Overall, most researches identified that at
higher latitudes, boreal deforestation will results in cooling effects due to that the
boreal forests with lower albedo being replaced by other types of vegetation with
higher albedo, such as crops and grasslands. (Pielke et al.
2002
). Boreal defor-
estation will lead to a large increase in albedo especially in winter (Lawrence and
Chase
2010
), Also boreal deforestation can alter surface heat balance by altering
evaporative heat transfer caused by evapotranspiration from vegetation, and by
changes in surface roughness(Ellis and Pontius
2007
).
European Russia with high coverage of boreal forest has gone through intensive
human activities. The largest part of the boreal forests is located in Russia, and
about half of the boreal forests are still primary, with very limited impacts from
forestry and other human activities. While the most intensely managed part of the
boreal forest is in Scandinavia and western Russia (European Russia), where only
patches of old-growth forests remain in reserves. Some researchers have showed
that European Russia has experienced fluctuant forest cover change. Baumann
