Land cover changes (LCCs) influence land surface temperature through biogeophysical (BGP) and biogeochemical (BGC) processes. Yet, their combined, spatially varying effects remain inadequately quantified for major LCCs in China over the past two decades. This study integrates biogeophysical and biogeochemical processes to assess how LCCs affect local land surface temperature (LST) across China from 2000 to 2020, leveraging satellite-derived LST data and transient climate response estimates from CMIP5 models. We find that LCCs occurred in 5.87% of China’s land area, driven by ecological restoration, cropland expansion, and urbanization. These LCCs caused a BGP warming of 0.000181°C nationally, which was counteracted by a BGC cooling of -0.000199°C (a magnitude equivalent to 110% of the BGP warming) associated with a net carbon sink of 1.33 GtCO 2 . The resulting combined net cooling effects indicate that LCCs overall played a mitigating role against background warming. Regionally, the combined effects showed strong warming in eastern China, linked to urbanization and cropland degradation, and cooling in western China, driven by ecological restoration. BGC effects dominated the local LST response over BGP effects in most (80%) LCC areas except urbanization. Local synergy between BGP and BGC was observed in 61% of LCC areas, where they intensify each other’s local effects. These findings reveal distinct synergistic and tradeoff relationships between BGP and BGC effects associated with LCCs and their spatial patterns. It also highlights the potential of effective land use/cover management as a natural climate solution for climate mitigation.
Zhong et al. (Mon,) studied this question.