Climate Recovery and Adaptation potential of Forests in the Tropics

热带森林的气候恢复和适应潜力

• 批准号: MR/X034097/1
• 负责人: Jessica Baker
• 金额: $ 183.98万
• 依托单位: University of Leeds
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FX034097%2F1
• 关键词: Climate; Recovery; Adaptation; potential; Forests

Tropical forests are globally critical centres of biodiversity and carbon storage. These forests face serious threat from deforestation - nearly 97% of permanent forest loss in the past decade has occurred in the tropics (FAO, 2020). Innovative solutions to reduce tropical deforestation are urgently required. International climate treaties recognise forests as an essential resource for mitigating global climate change through carbon capture and storage, but their role in helping humans adapt to rising global temperatures has not yet been assessed. Quantifying the potential contribution of intact and recovering tropical forests to climate change adaptation would shift the paradigm of forest conservation incentives away from promoting global-level mitigation benefits towards demonstrating the value of forests at local and national scales, thereby influencing the actions of those with power over the fate of tropical forests. Strengthening linkages between mitigation and adaptation would also offer new national incentives to achieve global climate targets. Replacing tropical forests with alternative land types disrupts regular water and energy exchanges between the land and the atmosphere, causing higher surface temperatures and changes to the water cycle. These changes exacerbate climate change-driven warming and droughts with severe consequences for human health and crop productivity. The presence of forest could alleviate the damaging effects of global climate change by cooling surrounding non-forest landscapes, reducing the frequency of heatwaves and sustaining inland water supplies. However, the potential for tropical forests to offer such ecosystem-based adaptation, and the dependence of climate services on forest type and degradation status, have not been evaluated. This evaluation is limited by the capability of climate models to capture the complexities of forest-climate interactions, and therefore their ability to reliably predict how tropical deforestation or afforestation may modify future temperature increases.I will lead a team of researchers to deliver the first in-depth assessment of the local and regional climate benefits provided by intact and regenerating tropical forests. My analysis will combine, for the first time, the latest satellite and ground-based measurements, air-mass trajectory modelling and state-of-the-art numerical models to accurately quantify how tropical forests interact with climate at varying spatial scales. Advances in understanding will inform the development of the UK Earth System Model to derive improved predictions of how alternative tropical land-use pathways will influence future climate at regional and global scales. My trans-disciplinary and far-reaching Fellowship will extend beyond detailed physical climate science to consider how ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change has co-benefits for human health, agricultural resilience, sustainable resource management and environmental justice. Results will lead to a step-change in how forests are valued, focus motivations for their preservation on local and national benefits and identify synergies between mitigation and adaptation policies. The proposed research agenda builds on my growing expertise in tropical forests, land-atmosphere interactions, and climate change, to transform routes to forest conservation and adaptation.

热带森林是全球重要的生物多样性和碳储存中心。这些森林面临着森林砍伐的严重威胁-过去十年中，近97%的永久性森林损失发生在热带地区（粮农组织，2020年）。迫切需要采取创新办法，减少热带森林砍伐。国际气候条约承认森林是通过碳捕获和储存减缓全球气候变化的重要资源，但尚未评估森林在帮助人类适应全球气温上升方面的作用。量化完整和正在恢复的热带森林对适应气候变化的潜在贡献，将改变森林养护激励措施的模式，从促进全球一级的缓解惠益转向在地方和国家一级展示森林的价值，从而影响那些对热带森林命运有影响力的人的行动。加强缓解与适应之间的联系还将为实现全球气候目标提供新的国家激励措施。用其他土地类型取代热带森林会破坏土地与大气之间正常的水和能量交换，导致地表温度升高，水循环发生变化。这些变化加剧了气候变化导致的变暖和干旱，对人类健康和作物生产力造成严重后果。森林的存在可以通过冷却周围的非森林景观，减少热浪的频率和维持内陆水供应来减轻全球气候变化的破坏性影响。然而，热带森林提供这种基于生态系统的适应的潜力以及气候服务对森林类型和退化状况的依赖性尚未得到评估。这一评估受到气候模型捕捉森林-气候相互作用复杂性的能力的限制，因此也受到它们可靠地预测热带森林砍伐或植树造林如何改变未来气温升高的能力的限制。我将领导一个研究小组，对完整和再生的热带森林提供的当地和区域气候效益进行首次深入评估。我的分析将联合收割机首次结合最新的卫星和地面测量、气团轨迹建模和最先进的数值模型，以准确量化热带森林如何在不同的空间尺度上与气候相互作用。了解的进展将为英国地球系统模型的开发提供信息，以改进对替代热带土地利用途径将如何影响区域和全球尺度未来气候的预测。我的跨学科和影响深远的奖学金将超越详细的物理气候科学，考虑如何基于生态系统的适应气候变化对人类健康，农业恢复力，可持续资源管理和环境正义的共同利益。这些成果将导致森林价值的逐步改变，将保护森林的动机集中在地方和国家利益上，并确定减缓和适应政策之间的协同作用。拟议的研究议程建立在我在热带森林，土地-大气相互作用和气候变化方面不断增长的专业知识的基础上，以改变森林保护和适应的路线。