Researchers have discovered a correlation between deforestation and
local temperature changes in many temperate mid-latitude locations around the world.
Deforestation, the growth of forests, and other changes in land cover could
produce local temperature changes comparable to those caused by greenhouse gases according to new simulations from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
1: Thermodynamics and charge balance place serious restraints on the ability of dissolved carbon dioxide to pass into the gas phase as a result of
local temperature changes.
Shifts can be extreme and persistent —
local temperature changes of as much as 10oC in a decade — megadroughts and megafloods such as we have not seen in the 20th century.
Figure 5:
Local temperature change (blue) and global carbon dioxide change (red) observed in Antarctic ice core records.