Direct climate effects of perennial bioenergy crops in the United States.

ABSTRACT: Biomass-derived energy offers the potential to increase energy security while mitigating anthropogenic climate change, but a successful path toward increased production requires a thorough accounting of costs and benefits. Until recently, the efficacy of biomass-derived energy has focused primarily on biogeochemical consequences. Here we show that the biogeophysical effects that result from hypothetical conversion of annual to perennial bioenergy crops across the central United States impart a significant local to regional cooling with considerable implications for the reservoir of stored soil water. This cooling effect is related mainly to local increases in transpiration, but also to higher albedo. The reduction in radiative forcing from albedo alone is equivalent to a carbon emissions r

SUBMITTER: Georgescu M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3060251 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature