Publication Date:
2022-05-26
Description:
© The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Environmental Research Letters 12 (2017): 094016, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa836d.
Description:
While carbon dioxide emissions from energy use must be the primary target of climate change
mitigation efforts, land use and land cover change (LULCC) also represent an important source of
climate forcing. In this study we compute time series of global surface temperature change separately
for LULCC and non-LULCC sources (primarily fossil fuel burning), and show that because of the
extra warming associated with the co-emission of methane and nitrous oxide with LULCC carbon
dioxide emissions, and a co-emission of cooling aerosols with non-LULCC emissions of carbon
dioxide, the linear relationship between cumulative carbon dioxide emissions and temperature has a
two-fold higher slope for LULCC than for non-LULCC activities. Moreover, projections used in the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the rate of tropical land conversion in the
future are relatively low compared to contemporary observations, suggesting that the future
projections of land conversion used in the IPCC may underestimate potential impacts of LULCC. By
including a ‘business as usual’ future LULCC scenario for tropical deforestation, we find that even if
all non-LULCC emissions are switched off in 2015, it is likely that 1.5 ◦C of warming relative to the
preindustrial era will occur by 2100. Thus, policies to reduce LULCC emissions must remain a high
priority if we are to achieve the low to medium temperature change targets proposed as a part of the
Paris Agreement. Future studies using integrated assessment models and other climate simulations
should include more realistic deforestation rates and the integration of policy that would reduce
LULCC emissions.
Description:
We would like to acknowledge the support from
grants NSF-ATM1049033, NSF-CCF-1522054, NSFAGS-
1048827 and DOE-SC0016362, DOE Office
of Science Biogeochemical Cycles Feedbacks and
ACME Science Focus Areas as well as assistance
from the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future
Keywords:
Land use
;
Climate change
;
Agriculture
;
Deforestation
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
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