Global and Planetary Change 69 (2009) 195–204

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Global and Planetary Change

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / g l o p l a c h a

The net carbon drawdown of small scale afforestation from satellite observations
Alvaro Montenegro a,⁎,1, Michael Eby a, Qiaozhen Mu b, Mark Mulligan c, Andrew J. Weaver a,
Edward C. Wiebe a, Maosheng Zhao b
a
University of Victoria, Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Canada
b
The University of Montana, College of Forestry and Conservation, USA
c
King's College London, Department of Geography, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Climate models indicate that warming due to increase in shortwave absorption from the lowering of albedo caused
Received 15 April 2009 by afforestation reduces and can even overcome, particularly at high latitudes, the cooling caused by the carbon
Accepted 23 August 2009 drawdown. We use high resolution (0.05×0.05° to 1×1°) global satellite observations to investigate the effects of
Available online 16 September 2009
afforestation. Results are markedly different from the coarser (~2.5×~2.5°) model-based studies. Between 40°S and
60°N afforestation always results in cooling. Many of the areas with the highest net carbon drawdown (drawdown
Keywords:
afforestation
after albedo effects) are at high latitudes. There is large zonal variability in drawdown and latitude is not a good
climate mitigation indicator of afforestation efficiency. The overall efficiency of afforestation, defined as the net carbon drawdown
surface energy balance divided by the total drawdown, is about 50%. By only considering the total drawdown and not considering albedo
effects, the Kyoto Protocol carbon accounting rules grossly overestimate the cooling caused by afforestation
drawdown.
© 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Afforestation, the human induced conversion of crop or marginal
lands into forests, is considered by the IPCC as one of the key climate
change mitigation strategies available to the forestry sector (Nabuurs
et al., 2007). The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCC), through the Kyoto Protocol (UNFCCC, 2001), allows
the atmospheric carbon drawdown generated by afforestation to be
accounted as sequestered carbon and contributes to the emission
budget of the signatory nations.
Surface reflectivity (or albedo) depends on land cover. Croplands
tend to be brighter and hence absorb a smaller fraction of the
incoming solar radiation than forests which tend to be darker. A
change in vegetation will, through the associated albedo change,
modify the local radiation budget. It is estimated that the increase in
albedo caused by deforestation since 1750 has had a cooling effect
with an average global negative radiative forcing of a − 0.2 W m− 2 ±
0.2 W m− 2 (Solomon et al., 2007a).
In order to determine the climatic effects of afforestation, the
cooling resulting from the sequestered carbon should be “dis-
counted” by the warming induced by the decrease in surface albedo
as land cover changes from crop to forest (Betts, 2000). This effect
has been shown to be particularly important at higher latitudes
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: amontene@stfx.ca (A. Montenegro).
1
Now at St. Francis Xavier University, Canada.
because snow covered open lands have much higher albedo than
snow covered forests.
In general, afforestation promotes greater evapotranspiration
leading to an increase in latent heat flux and cooling (Kleidon et al.,
2000; Govindasamy et al., 2001; Bounoua et al., 2002; Bala et al.,
2007). Unlike the changes in albedo and atmospheric CO2, this direct
cooling is a local effect which does not significantly influence the
planet's radiative budget (as the extra latent heat leaving the surface
will be returned to the atmosphere as the vapour condenses). We use
satellite derived evapotranspiration to estimate this local change.
Changes in evapotranspiration can affect the global radiative
budget by their impacts on cloud cover and hence atmospheric
albedo. This can be an important factor in the climate response to
large scale land cover change, particularly in the lower latitudes (Betts
et al., 2007), and an increase in cloud cover (and albedo) is predicted
by models over afforested regions (Bala et al., 2007). The picture is not
so clear for changes at smaller scales. For spatial scales ranging from
106 to 107 m2 (10 to 100 ha), observations indicate that a decrease in
convection and cloud cover is to be expected over the afforested area
(Rabin and Martin, 1996; Gash and Nobre, 1997; Durieux et al., 2003;
Chagnon et al., 2004) and recent satellite data analysis over the tropics
show no consistent difference in cloud coverage between nearby
forested and deforested areas (Mulligan, 2008). Here we use global
cloud observations with 25 km2 resolution to analyze the relation
between cloud and surface cover.
In a study that used modelled albedo and observed regional esti-
mates of potential sequestration, afforestation resulted in cooling at
mid-latitudes and net warming in some high latitude areas (Betts,

0921-8181/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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196 A. Montenegro et al. / Global and Planetary Change 69 (2009) 195–204
2000). In earlier studies using climate models, the global temperature
response is cooling for low latitude afforestation, negligible change or
warming for mid-latitude afforestation and warming for afforestation
at high latitudes (Claussen et al., 2001; Gibbard et al., 2005; Bala et al.,
2007).
The present UNFCC regulations on afforestation do not take the
albedo effect into consideration (UNFCCC, 2001). According to the
IPCC, while albedo effects should be taken into account, there are
knowledge gaps on how the change in albedo will impact mitigation
by afforestation (Nabuurs et al., 2007). Here we quantify the most
relevant climatic effects of afforestation using high resolution satellite
derived shortwave radiation flux, albedo, evapotranspiration, land
cover, cloud cover and snow cover data.
Previous studies on this theme were either based on global
climate models (Claussen et al., 2001; Gibbard et al., 2005; Bala et al.,
2007) or required some input from global models (Betts, 2000). They
were unable, due to their relatively coarse spatial resolution
(≥ 2 × 2°), to provide results at a spatial scale relevant to individual
afforestation projects. The models simulate afforestation by chang-
ing the cover globally or in whole latitude bands. These experiments
are able to bracket the effects of maximum afforestation and provide
information on the climatic process influenced by large scale change
in vegetation cover, but they do not offer a realistic representation of
how afforestation could occur. Even if afforestation becomes a very
prominent mitigation tool, significant portions of present agricul-
tural land would have to remain as such in the foreseeable future.
Also, with the exception of (Betts, 2000), land cover is changed in
areas where presently no crops are found, that is, the effects of
afforestation are being considered over areas where no afforestation
is possible.
Our analysis is global, but performed at a spatial resolution that is
much closer to the scale of individual afforestation projects (~5 km2–
25 km2). It is only conducted on areas where afforestation could take
place. These are chosen as areas presently occupied by cropland and
that, according to estimates of potential vegetation, would be
occupied by forests if it were not for human activities. The assumption
is that afforestation is not a viable mitigation strategy if the existence
of the forest requires artificial supply of water, nutrients or other type
of high intensity management. Another important distinction is that
our input is based on observed and not modelled results. The analysis
consists of comparing the radiative effects of the carbon drawdown
resulting from the increase in land carbon storage to the radiative
effects of changes in surface albedo, latent heat flux and cloud cover
due to afforestation.
Our analyses provide estimates of the radiative effects of small
scale afforestation and were not designed to determine the impacts
of afforestation on atmospheric circulation nor the effects of
regional or continental land cover change. That is, results should
not be integrated into global values and much less, reversed and
used as estimates of large scale deforestation (cutting down the
Amazon for example). While the sensitivity of results to climate
change is discussed, the goal is to provide a best estimate of the
effects of afforestation under the present climate. These limitations
are imposed by our use of satellite measurements and not model
simulations. While some flexibility and the effects of some climate
related feed-backs are lost, the adoption of satellite data makes it
possible to estimate the albedo effects of afforestation at an
unprecedented resolution and, at the same time, avoid uncertain-
ties associated with modeling of snow cover and albedo. The use of
satellite land cover in tandem with biome-based land carbon
density also provides high resolution estimates of carbon density
change.
Our approach generates estimates of the climatic effects of
afforestation that take into account the effects of albedo at a resolution
pertinent to individual afforestation projects making them a viable
tool in carbon policy decision making.
2. Data and methods
Analysis consists of using a present day land cover data set in
conjunction with a potential vegetation data set to identify 5 × 5 km
pixels where present day land cover is cropland and where the po-
tential vegetation land cover is forest. Atmospheric carbon drawdown
and radiative effects of land cover change are then estimated based on
conversion of the entire 5 × 5 km pixel from cropland to forest. The
sections below describe the data and methods used for these esti-
mates. As analyses are only performed on areas where present day
cover is cropland and potential vegetation cover is forest, in the text
“present day” vegetation is equivalent to cropland and “potential”
vegetation is equivalent to forest.
2.1. Potential vegetation
The present day potential vegetation estimates come from the
reconstruction by (Ramankutty and Foley, 1999) with five minute
spatial resolution and represent the vegetation that would most likely
exist in 1992 in the absence of human activities. Prior to analysis these
data were interpolated using a nearest neighbor method into a 0.05 ×
0.05° grid. As albedo is estimated based on relationships between albedo
and International Geosphere–Biosphere Program (IGBP) vegetation
types, the potential vegetation classes were converted into the IGBP
vegetation classes (Belward et al., 1999) (see Table 1 in Appendix A).
2.2. Present day land cover
Present day land cover data are obtained from the Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Land Cover product
(Friedl et al., 2002). The adopted values are the dominant vegetation
in 2001 from the MOD12C1 0.05 × 0.05° global gridded product with
IGBP classification as provided by the Land Cover and Land Cover
Dynamics group at Boston University (LCD-BU, 2008).
2.3. Snow cover
Snow cover data come from the MODIS MOD10CM global monthly
0.05 × 0.05° gridded product as provided by the MODIS Land group
(Hall and Riggs, 2007; MLG, 2008). The data are used to generate a
monthly climatology of snow cover areal fraction. The MOD10CM data
were available for the years of 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2005 but cover-
age was not continuous. The number of months averaged to produce
the climatology ranges from 3 to 4, with the exception of June, with
two values.
2.4. Albedo
The albedo values are estimated based on the relationship be-
tween vegetation type and snow free albedo obtained by Gao et al.
(2005) and the relationship between vegetation type and snow
covered albedo presented by Moody et al. (2007). Both of these use
the IGBP vegetation classes and both present maximum and minimum
albedo values for each class. The land cover–albedo correlation is a
function of latitude for the snow free albedo and spatially constant in
the snow covered case. Monthly maps of maximum, minimum and
average albedo are calculated through a simple weighted average:
α = Fαvs + (1 − F)αv, where α is the total albedo, F is the snow
covered fraction, αv is the snow free albedo, αvs the snow covered
albedo and the subscript v indicates the fact that the albedo is a
function of the local dominant vegetation type as determined by the
potential vegetation or MODIS land cover data.
 A. Montenegro et al. / Global and Planetary Change 69 (2009) 195–204
2.5. Soil and vegetation carbon density
As with albedo, relationships obtained by previous studies are
used to determine soil (Prentice et al., 1993; House et al., 2002) and
vegetation ((Olson et al., 1985; House et al., 2002) carbon densities as
a function of land cover. All studies provide a range of densities for
each land cover type so that maximum, minimum and average soil
and vegetation densities maps are generated. Soil and vegetation
carbon densities are determined for croplands and five different forest
categories. The resulting 12 (six soil and six vegetation) fields are
combined and averaged to generate three (maximum, minimum and
average) total carbon storage maps. This is done for both present day
and potential vegetation (see Fig. 1 for cropland and forest average
carbon densities and Table 2 in Appendix B for the conversions of the
vegetation classes used by these studies into IGBP classes).
2.6. Incoming shortwave flux at the surface
Surface downward shortwave fluxes (I) come from the Interna-
tional Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Initiative II
Data Collection. We used the All Sky Surface Shortwave Flux product
available online (Shashi et al., 1999; Stackhouse et al., 2000; Collection,
2008) as monthly averages gridded at 1 × 1° resolution. Monthly
values from 1986 to 1994 are averaged into a monthly climatology and
interpolated into a 0.05 × 0.05° grid.
2.7. Evapotranspiration
Evapotranspiration (ET) values represent a 2000–2006 mean and
are calculated at 0.05 × 0.05° resolution using the procedure described
by Mu et al. (2007), which estimates ET based on MODIS albedo, leaf
area index (LAI) and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and daily
meteorological data from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office
(GMAO) reanalysis.
2.8. Cloud cover
Cloud frequency data were obtained from the MODIS 1 km cloud
climatology data set of Mulligan (2006a). Cloud frequency is a
measure of the proportion of observations in which clouds are present
in a given 1 km pixel.
The climatology was produced by combining the entire MODIS
MOD35 Cloud product for MODIS TERRA and MODIS AQUA for the
period 2001–2006. All of the swath data were converted to grids and
the data were analysed to derive annual average, monthly and diurnal
statistics on cloud frequency at 1 km resolution for the entire tropics
and at 250 m resolution for some tropical land areas.
2.9. Afforestation changes
2.9.1. Albedo and carbon density
The drawdown generated by afforestation is a function of the
increase in total carbon storage on land as cover goes from crop, or
present day vegetation, to forest, or potential vegetation:
ΔLc = ðVCfo + SCfo Þ−ðVCcr + SCcr Þ
where ΔLc is the total change in density, VC is vegetation carbon
density, SC is soil carbon density and the subscripts fo and cr refer to
forest and cropland respectively. Maximum (minimum) increase in
carbon storage is estimated by subtracting the maximum (minimum)
potential storage estimate from the minimum (maximum) present
day storage estimate.
Historically, about half of the anthropogenic emissions, includ-
ing those related to deforestation, have remained in the atmo-
sphere, with the remainder being absorbed by the oceans and land
197
surface. Our atmospheric drawdown is estimated to be 50% of the
increase in land carbon. We therefore assume that the change in
atmospheric carbon caused by afforestation will be inverse and
symmetric to the increase in atmospheric carbon generated by
deforestation (Betts, 2000; House et al., 2002) with total carbon
drawdown given by:
TD = 0:5 ΔLc : ð2Þ
The albedo fields based on present day and potential vegetation
data are used to generate monthly maps of average, minimum and
maximum absorbed shortwave radiation in W m− 2 (a) by: a = I(1 −
α) + 0.23(αI) where the second term on the right accounts for the
atmospheric absorption of the reflected short wave flux (Weaver
et al., 2001), the original 0.3 is here adjusted to 0.23 to account for
absorption of the downward and upward shortwave fluxes). These
monthly fields are averaged into annual mean absorption maps and
the difference between potential and present day vegetation values
provides the increase in absorption caused by afforestation. The
maximum (minimum) absorption change is obtained by subtracting
the maximum (minimum) potential vegetation absorption from the
minimum (maximum) present day absorption.
The increase in absorption caused by afforestation is expressed for
each grid box in terms of its effect on the global radiative flux by
Δa = ab/E, where b is the grid box area and E the area of the Earth's
surface. To facilitate comparison to the estimated drawdown, Δa is
converted from W m− 2 to kilograms of carbon per m2 (Betts, 2000).
First, the radiative forcing is expressed as a change in atmospheric CO2
concentration (ΔaCO2) in parts per million by volume (ppmv):
 
Δa
ΔaCO2 = C0 exp5:35 −1 : ð3Þ
C0 is the 2006 atmospheric CO2 concentration, set to 380 ppmv
(Tans, 2008). Eq. (3) is based on a 3.7 W m− 2 increase in radiative
forcing for a doubling of atmospheric CO2·ΔaCO2 values are then
converted to kg of carbon (Δac) by:
Δac = ð2ΔaCO2 Þ = k; ð4Þ
where k=2.13×10− 12 is the conversion factor from atmospheric CO2
concentration into kg of carbon (Jr, 1990) and the factor of two comes
from the assumption explained above that only 50% of emissions remain
in the atmosphere.
Net afforestation drawdown is calculated by subtracting the
radiative forcing from the decrease in albedo (expressed as a local
carbon emission equivalent in kg m− 2) from the total drawdown
resulting from increase in land carbon:
ND = TD−Δac : ð5Þ
Given the uncertainties in total drawdown and albedo estimates we
calculate maximum, minimum and average net drawdown scenarios.
Maximum (minimum) net drawdown is obtained by subtracting the
minimum (maximum) increase in absorption from the maximum
(minimum) total drawdown.
ð1Þ
2.9.2. Evapotranspiration change
While vegetation cover is an important contributor, it is not the
sole determinant of LAI, EVI and albedo, which are also influenced by
other factors such as temperature, precipitation and plant physiol-
ogy. This means that changes in ET related to afforestation cannot be
obtained by global substitution of typical crop values LAI, EVI and
albedo by typical forest values of these parameters. In our analyses
these three quantities are calculated every 8- or 16-day MODIS data
composite time period for each grid point where afforestation is
possible in the following manner (using a generic grid point Gi,j as an
 198
A. Montenegro et al. / Global and Planetary Change 69 (2009) 195–204
Fig. 1. Mean carbon densities over areas of realizable afforestation in kg m2. Note difference in color bar ranges. Top left, cropland vegetation carbon density. Bottom left, cropland soil carbon density. Top right, forest vegetation carbon density.
Bottom right, forest soil carbon density.
 A. Montenegro et al. / Global and Planetary Change 69 (2009) 195–204
Fig. 2. Results for the average drawdown afforestation scenario. Top left, total carbon drawdown (kgm− 2) due to increase in land carbon storage. Bottom left, change in radiative forcing expressed in terms of carbon emissions equivalent (kgm− 2). Top
right, net drawdown (total-emissions equivalent). Bottom right, drawdown efficiency (net/total). Note the difference in color scale between panels. Values are only plotted for areas where afforestation could take place (see text). For clarity, the figure
shows results interpolated to 0.1 × 0.1° resolution, twice as coarse as the actual results. The abrupt discontinuity south of 20° N in India is caused by a lack of albedo information for the IGBP “mixed forest” class below that latitude (Gao et al., 2005).

199
200 A. Montenegro et al. / Global and Planetary Change 69 (2009) 195–204
example): On the present day vegetation map, a 2×1° (longitude×
latitude) area around Gi,j is searched for the forest type that would be
present at Gi,j according to the potential vegetation data. This search
strategy is chosen as a way to maximize the possibility that the selected
forested pixels will have similar seasonal profile in LAI to the original
pixel as they would be in a similar climatic thermal zone. If grid points
containing the pertinent forest type exist, their distance-weighted
mean LAI, EVI and albedo at up to four nearest points are used to
calculate the afforestation ET at Gi,j. The assumption is that nearby
points containing the same forest type should have similar parameters.
If the box around Gi,j does not contain the suitable forest type, its
afforestation ET is based on interpolation of the neighboring
afforestation ET values.
These changes in ET are used to calculate the impact of affores-
tation on surface latent heat flux. In general, the switch from crops to
forest results in greater ET and latent heat fluxes but in some areas,
possibly due to irrigation (especially over temperate east China),
afforestation brings about a reduction of these parameters.
2.9.3. Cloud cover change
The impacts of afforestation on cloud cover come from databased
analyses of the impact of historic (satellite measured) land cover
change on satellite measured cloud cover and rainfall for the 2000–
2006 period. One cannot directly compare land cover with
climatological cloud frequency and hope to extract the impact of
land cover on cloud statistics since so many other variables (that
have little to do with land cover) control the rainfall and cloud
generation processes. Moreover land cover is fundamentally
dependent on the prevailing climate, particularly the balance
between rainfall and potential evapotranspiration (solar radiation
mediated by cloud cover). In order to understand the potential
impact of afforestation on cloud cover we therefore have to compare
areas with significantly different land cover but in the same climatic
environment i.e. very near to each other. We use three data sets
Fig. 3. Minimum, top and maximum, bottom, net afforestation carbon drawdown (kgm− 2). Note the difference in color scale between panels and the negative values (net warming)
for some areas in the minimum drawdown case.
gridded originally at 1 km resolution but sub-sampled for this
analysis to 0.25° averages of the 1 km data. These data represent
fractional tree cover change (Mulligan, 2007), rainfall (Mulligan,
2006b) and cloud cover (Mulligan, 2006a) derived from Hansen
et al. (2006). The analysis covers the area between ±40°.
3. Results and discussion
The net drawdown in the average scenario, while tending to be
less than half of the total drawdown, is positive for all latitudes.
Contrary to previous studies (Betts, 2000; Claussen et al., 2001;
Gibbard et al., 2005; Bala et al., 2007), afforestation does not cause
warming anywhere between 40°S and 60°N (Fig. 2). Although some
N–S structure is present in regions like the eastern USA or
southeastern Brazil, the global spatial pattern of the net drawdown
is closely related to the total drawdown and does not show a clear
latitudinal distribution as some models have suggested (Claussen
et al., 2001; Gibbard et al., 2005; Bala et al., 2007).
The albedo emissions equivalent tends to be greater at higher
latitudes but there is significant zonal variability (Fig. 2). In the mid
to high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, the only region where
comparison is possible, the spatial distribution of albedo effects are
in good agreement with previous model-based estimates (Betts,
2000). The large albedo impact at higher latitudes does not
overcome the local concomitant total drawdown of some high
latitude regions. Many of the highest net drawdown values come
from locations above 50°N, mainly due to the high forest soil carbon
content. The compounded effects of low total drawdown and
relatively high albedo emissions equivalent result in the smallest
net drawdown values being found in some areas between ~ 20° and
~ 30° of both southern and northern hemisphere. The large
drawdown at some high latitude regions and small drawdown at
some areas in the tropics and sub-tropics are different from previous
modelled results (Claussen et al., 2001; Gibbard et al., 2005; Bala
 A. Montenegro et al. / Global and Planetary Change 69 (2009) 195–204
et al., 2007), which show smaller (and even negative) drawdown at
high latitudes and larger drawdown at smaller latitudes.
Part of the discrepancy between our average scenario results and
some of the earlier studies can be traced to our larger total drawdown. Our
global mean carbon drawdown is ~15kgm− 2 compared to the 10kgm− 2
adopted by Gibbard et al. (2005) and our high latitude (>50°N) mean
carbon drawdown is 18kgm− 2 compared to the 5.5 kg m− 2 modelled by
Claussen et al. (2001). Our regional high latitude values range from
17 kg m− 2 in Canada and eastern Siberia to 20 kg m− 2 in eastern
Europe, much higher than the respective 6 kg m− 2 and 10 kg m− 2
used by Betts (2000).
The global increase in land carbon calculated by our methodology
for the conversion of all present day crops into forests ranges from
43 Pg to 209 Pg with a mean of 134 Pg. This last value is slightly (15%)
lower than the recent estimate of historical land use change emis-
sions, largely the result of deforestation, of 158 Pg of carbon (Canadell
et al., 2007). Given this good agreement, it is unlikely that the
differences between our total drawdown and those from previous
studies are caused by systematic error (overestimation) in our carbon
density values. There are indications that old-growth forests still act
as carbon sinks (Luyssaert et al., 2008). If this is the case, our
estimates, which are based on mature forests being carbon neutral,
could underestimate carbon density.
A smaller difference between crop and forest albedo also helps
explain why our high latitude afforestation is more efficient than
some of the earlier studies. The mean albedo change we obtain for
the average scenario high latitudes is ~ − 0.15 compared to − 0.2 to
− 0.25 of other studies (Bala et al., 2007; Betts et al., 2007) (See
Fig. 5). The decrease in snow free albedo we compute is similar to
the decrease obtained by those other experiments and the observed
differences are mainly related to differences in the albedo of snow
covered vegetation and/or differences in snow cover areal fraction.
As noted by the author, the model used by Betts (2000) over-
estimates snow mass over Siberia.
The much finer spatial resolution used here allows us to better
restrict the analyses to areas where afforestation can occur. By
considering the effects of afforestation where no agriculture takes
place, past studies could have overestimated the decrease in albedo
over higher latitudes. These artificial boreal croplands, with their
extensive, long lasting snow cover could “contaminate” results with
unrealistic high pre-afforestation albedo values.
For the minimum drawdown scenario, computed using the maxi-
mum change in absorption and minimum increase in land carbon,
afforestation results in net warming (negative drawdown) at some
high latitude regions in North America and Asia as well as portions of
southeastern China and South America between 20°S and the equator.
Most of Europe shows positive drawdown, with negative values
concentrated around the Mediterranean (Fig. 3). The general location
of the negative drawdown areas are in good agreement with the other
study that focused exclusively on radiative changes (Betts, 2000).
Fig. 4. Change in surface latent heat flux into the atmosphere due to afforestation.
201
Even in our worst case scenario, many areas above 50° N have posi-
tive drawdown. The afforestation efficiency of the minimum draw-
down scenario (not shown) ranges from ~ −20% to ~ 40%. The net
drawdown of the “best case”, maximum drawdown scenario follows
the spatial patterns of the average case but with values that are ~40%
to ~ 60% larger (Fig. 3) and with an afforestation efficiency (not
shown) of ~50%.
3.1. Climate sensitivity
As our snow cover climatology comes from a relatively short time
series, we estimate the sensitivity of the mean case drawdown to
changes in snow cover. This is done adding ±0.1 to bins where snow
is present in the monthly snow cover areal fraction fields. This
generates minimum local snow cover anomalies of 10%, in agreement
with estimates of northern hemisphere interannual snow cover
variability (Robson and Frei, 2000) and close to the 13% projected
decrease in northern hemisphere snow cover at the end of the 21st
century (Solomon et al., 2007b).The impact of these new snow cover
fields on net drawdown is small, with a mean change of 1% above 40°N
and maximum values around 3% over eastern Asia and western N.
America (not shown).
3.2. Changes to evapotranspiration, latent heat flux and cloud cover
As expected, observations indicate that afforestation causes an
increase in latent heat flux over most areas (Fig. 4, note exceptions in
small portions of southeastern Brazil and northeastern China around
30°N). The cooling generated by the increase in ET over afforested areas
is a local effect and cannot impact the global energy budget significantly
(see Appendix D for a discussion of the maximum effects of these
changes in ET).
Observations at 1 km resolution averaged over 0.25° show no
consistent relationship between forest cover and mean annual cloud
frequency (see Appendix E). This is an indication that cloud frequency
is not primarily determined by absence or presence of forest at these
spatial scales and that the response of cloud cover to afforestation
cannot be evaluated at the scales pertinent to individual afforestation
projects. Based on these results we opt not to impose a change in
albedo due to changes in cloud cover in our radiative budget estimates
of afforestation.
3.3. Missing feed-backs
Changes to ET and surface roughness caused by afforestation can
influence climate by their effects on atmospheric circulation and
water vapour transport. While there is evidence for this in the case
of regional scale land surface change (Gedney and Valdes, 2000; Fu,
2003; R.B. et al., 2005; D'Almeida et al., 2007), taking the cloud
response into consideration we expect these impacts to be small for
202 A. Montenegro et al. / Global and Planetary Change 69 (2009) 195–204

changes on the spatial scales of interest to our analysis; nonetheless,
our method does not account for such impacts. Another missing
effect of afforestation is the potential decrease in snow cover due to
local warming, which could lead to further increase in absorption
and further warming in a positive feedback loop. Our conclusions
are robust to changes in snow cover of up to 10%, but estimating the
actual impact of this feedback requires the use of a climate model.
4. Conclusions
Appendix B. IGBP to soil and vegetation carbon conversion
Table 2 describes vegetation classes used for carbon density
converted to IGBP classes.
Table 2
Conversion of the forest and cropland classes from the adopted soil and vegetation
carbon density tables into IGBP classes. For the Prentice Prentice et al. (1993) estimates,
cropland soil carbon comes from House House et al. (2002). HL, higher latitude, areas
poleward of ±30°, LL; lower latitude, areas between ±30°.

The climatic effects of small scale afforestation based on the IGBP Olsen House Prentice
analysis of high resolution satellite data are markedly different from Vegetation C Soil/Veg C Soil C
previous climate model-based results. Results show no simple relation
Evergreen Conifers Boreal forest Cool conifer
between afforestation efficiency and latitude. In our best estimate, the
needleleaf forest forest/taiga
conversion of cropland to forests brings about cooling in all areas of Evergreen Trop./subtrop. Tropical Tropical rain forest
the planet where afforestation is viable, including areas above 50°N. In broadleaf forest Broad-leaved forests
fact, many of the areas with the highest afforestation induced carbon humid forest
Deciduous Conifers Boreal forest Cool conifer
drawdown are found at high latitudes. Also contrasting with earlier
needleleaf forest forest /taiga
studies is the relatively low afforestation drawdown over some low Deciduous Mid-latitude temp. Temperate Temperate
latitude areas. Changes in cloud cover could be an important com- broadleaf forest Broad-leaved forest forest deciduous forests
ponent of the radiative response to afforestation, particularly at low Mixed forests — HL Mid-latitude Temperate Cool mixed forest
latitudes, but at the scales pertinent to individual afforestation mixed woods forest
Mixed forests — LL Mid-latitude Temperate Broad-leaved
projects observations demonstrate that cloud cover frequency is not
mixed woods forest evergreen/warm
controlled by the presence or absence of forests. mixed forest
While the overall picture is one where afforestation appears to be a Croplands — HL Cool or cold Croplands –
more viable mitigation option than previously believed, uncertainty farms, towns
Croplands — LL Warm/hot farms, Croplands –
in the data still point to a worst case scenario where afforestation
towns, cool
generates very low net carbon drawdown or even net warming at grass/scrub
both high and low latitudes. Crop./nat. Veg. Cool or cold Croplands –
The efficiency of afforestation is location dependent and has an Mosaic — HL farms, towns
average of about 50%. By not considering albedo effects, the current Crop./nat. Veg. Warm/hot farms, Croplands –
Mosaic — LL towns, cool
carbon accounting system of the Kyoto Protocol grossly overestimates
grass/scrub
afforestation drawdown. The use of satellite data allows the impact of
albedo changes on afforestation to be calculated at a resolution of
~ 5 km. It also circumvents risks associated with the complex
modeling of snow cover, vegetation and surface albedo. Our results Appendix C. Average change in albedo
demonstrate that analyses like the one conducted here can generate
reliable, site-specific estimates of this very important but presently Fig. 5 shows the change in albedo for the average scenario.
ignored process.
Appendix D. Evapotranspiration and latent heat flux
Acknowledgements
The cooling generated by the increase in ET over afforested areas is a
We are grateful for research funding from CFCAS. We would also local effect and cannot impact the global energy budget significantly.
like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for improving the Nevertheless, as this effect is more pronounced over low latitudes, where
manuscript and Mahendra K. Karki for help with the evapotranspi- our analysis contradicts previous results, we have decided to test the
ration MODIS data extraction. Funding for some of the work was maximum impact of this ET cooling assuming (unrealistically) that all the
provided by UK NERC, DfID and ESRC in their ESPA programme. extra latent heat flux caused by afforestation would escape into space.
Following the same procedure applied to the shortwave flux results, the
change in latent heat flux caused by afforestation is converted into a local
Appendix A. IGBP to potential vegetation conversion carbon drawdown (or emission in a few areas) and added to the net
carbon drawdown of the average afforestation scenario (Fig. 6).
Table 1 describes how the potential vegetation classes were As expected, the addition of ET effects results in increased
converted to IGBP classes. drawdown over most areas. The largest increases are seen in south
and southeast Asia, Australia and southern South America. Even under
Table 1 this unrealistic assumption, which greatly overestimates the effect of
Conversion of the potential vegetation forest classes into IGBP forest classes.
evapotranspiration on global cooling, it is clear that the efficiency of
Potential vegetation Converted to IGBP afforestation is not a simple function of latitude and that low latitude
Ramankutty and Foley (1999) afforestation does not necessarily result in larger drawdown than high
Tropical evergreen forest Evergreen broadleaf forest latitude afforestation.
Tropical deciduous forest Deciduous broadleaf forest
Temperate broadleaf evergreen forest Evergreen broadleaf forest
Temperate needleleaf evergreen forest Evergreen needleleaf forest Appendix E. Changes to cloud cover
Temperate deciduous forest Deciduous broadleaf forest
Boreal evergreen forest Evergreen needleleaf forest Observations at 1 km resolution averaged over 0.25° show no
Boreal deciduous forest Deciduous needleleaf forest consistent relationship between forest cover and mean annual cloud
Evergreen deciduous mixed forest Mixed forests
frequency (Fig. 7, top 3 panels). When results are averaged over 2° the
 A. Montenegro et al. / Global and Planetary Change 69 (2009) 195–204 203

Fig. 5. Change in surface albedo caused by afforestation in the average scenario.

Fig. 6. Maximum⁎ impact of changes in latent heat flux on net afforestation carbon drawdown (kgm− 2) in the average scenario. (⁎Assuming all the extra latent heat from change in
evapotranspiration escapes into space.)

correlation is still very heterogeneous in space, but some regional with the opposite true for the central-west portions of the Amazon
patterns tend to appear (Fig. 7, bottom). Forested areas in south and (see (Mulligan, 2008) for a more comprehensive analysis of these
southeast Asia, for example, tend to have less frequent cloud cover data).

Fig. 7. Percentage difference in mean annual cloud frequency between forested and non-forested areas. Negative values are present when forested areas have less frequent cloud
cover than neighboring non-forested areas and positive values indicate areas where forested areas have more frequent cloud cover than neighboring non-forested areas. Top three
panels are examples at 0.25° resolution for regions within Equatorial South America (left), Equatorial Africa (center) and Southeast Asia (right). Bottom panel show the same results
averaged over 2° bins. The color bar applies to all panels.
204 A. Montenegro et al. / Global and Planetary Change 69 (2009) 195–204
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