Project Details
Projekt
Climate feedbacks and benefits of semi-arid forests (CLiFF)
Subject Area
Forestry
Term
from 2015 to 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 264310116
The land biosphere influences the Earth climate through complex interactions and ultimately through its effect on atmospheric CO2 concentrations and on the surface energy balance. In this context, little information is available on forests in dry environments and our extensive study in semi-arid forests in Israel is therefore unique: its significance goes beyond the local scale owing to the persistent predictions of warming and drying for large proportions of the global land area. Recently, we demonstrated that the survival and high productivity of forests under dry conditions is associated with the development of a distinctive "convector effect" that results in massive fluxes of sensible heat from the surface to the atmosphere, significantly affecting both the forest microclimate, and the local environment and atmospheric dynamics. Combined with other ecophysiological adjustments, the semi-arid forest ecosystem has the potential not only to survive under predicted climate change, but also to alter local and, potentially, regional climates. Our objective is to quantify both the processes underlying the distinctive forest functioning in the dry environment, and the impact it has on the local environment and climate. This will be achieved by transforming our ecosystem scale study from the canopy scale, to that of the entire leaf to planetary boundary layer scales (from the bottom 20 m, up to entire 10 km of the surface-atmosphere interface). This will be based on the integration of the unique platforms and locations of the Weizmann team in Israel, with the expertise and technological capabilities of the KIT team for atmospheric boundary layer dynamics, controlled environmental research facility, and modeling. The significance of our project is to provide quantitiative information on the potential of afforestation in currently little explored but vast semi-arid regions (~ 18% of the land surface), on forest functioning and carbon sequestration if warming and drying trends continue, and on the effects of changes in local circulation, moisture, and surface temperatures on the regional climate.This will provide new means for management and policy development associated with adaptation and mitigation in dry environments under present-day and future conditions.
DFG Programme
DIP Programme
International Connection
Israel
