Tropical deforestation causes large reductions in observed precipitation.

ABSTRACT: Tropical forests play a critical role in the hydrological cycle and can influence local and regional precipitation¹. Previous work has assessed the impacts of tropical deforestation on precipitation, but these efforts have been largely limited to case studies². 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

SUBMITTER: Smith C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9995269 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature