英国利兹大学Smith, C.研究团队在研究中取得进展。他们发现了热带森林砍伐导致观测到的降水量大幅减少。该项研究成果发表在2023年3月1日出版的《自然》上。

课题组展示了热带森林砍伐地区降水量下降的结果。研究结果使用了卫星、站基和再分析数据，利用2003-2017年森林损失量对降水的影响进行泛热带评估。卫星数据集显示，森林砍伐对降水的影响能在更大范围内增加，在超过50公里的尺度上，森林的损失导致降水急剧减少。降水量的降幅最大发生在200公里处，这是研究组探索的最大尺度，在这一尺度下，森林损失1个百分点会使降水量每月减少0.25±0.1毫米。

再分析和基于站点的产品在降水对森林损失的响应方向上存在分歧，该课题组研究人员将其归因于稀疏的热带原位测量。该研究组估计，到2100年，刚果未来的森林砍伐将使当地降水减少8-10%。他们的发现为保护热带森林以支持区域气候恢复力提供了令人信服的论据。

据了解，热带森林在水文循环中起着关键作用，并可影响局部和区域降水。他们以前的工作评估了热带森林砍伐对降水的影响，但这些努力在很大程度上仅限于案例研究。对于森林砍伐和降水之间的相互作用——尤其是这种相互作用如何在空间尺度上变化——缺乏更广泛的分析。

附：英文原文

Title: Tropical deforestation causes large reductions in observed precipitation

Author: Smith, C., Baker, J. C. A., Spracklen, D. V.

Issue&Volume: 2023-03-01

Abstract: Tropical forests play a critical role in the hydrological cycle and can influence local and regional precipitation. Previous work has assessed the impacts of tropical deforestation on precipitation, but these efforts have been largely limited to case studies. A wider analysis of interactions between deforestation and precipitation—and especially how any such interactions might vary across spatial scales—is lacking. Here we show reduced precipitation over deforested regions across the tropics. Our results arise from a pan-tropical assessment of the impacts of 2003–2017 forest loss on precipitation using satellite, station-based and reanalysis datasets. The effect of deforestation on precipitation increased at larger scales, with satellite datasets showing that forest loss caused robust reductions in precipitation at scales greater than 50km. The greatest declines in precipitation occurred at 200km, the largest scale we explored, for which 1 percentage point of forest loss reduced precipitation by 0.25±0.1mm per month. Reanalysis and station-based products disagree on the direction of precipitation responses to forest loss, which we attribute to sparse in situ tropical measurements. We estimate that future deforestation in the Congo will reduce local precipitation by 8–10% in 2100. Our findings provide a compelling argument for tropical forest conservation to support regional climate resilience.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05690-1

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05690-1