title: Preferential cooling of hot extremes from cropland albedo management.
abstract: Changes in agricultural practices are considered a possible option to mitigate climate change. In particular, reducing or suppressing tillage (no-till) may have the potential to sequester carbon in soils, which could help slow global warming. On the other hand, such practices also have a direct effect on regional climate by altering the physical properties of the land surface. These biogeophysical effects, however, are still poorly known. Here we show that no-till management increases the surface albedo of croplands in summer and that the resulting cooling effect is amplified during hot extremes, thus attenuating peak temperatures reached during heat waves. Using a regional climate model accounting for the observed effects of no-till farming on surface albedo, as well as possible reductions in soil evaporation, we investigate the potential consequences of a full conversion to no-till agriculture in Europe. We find that the summer cooling from cropland albedo increase is strongly amplified during hot summer days, when surface albedo has more impact on the Earth's radiative balance due to clear-sky conditions. The reduced evaporation associated with the crop residue cover tends to counteract the albedo-induced cooling, but during hot days the albedo effect is the dominating factor. For heatwave summer days the local cooling effect gained from no-till practice is of the order of 2 °C. The identified asymmetric impact of surface albedo change on summer temperature opens new avenues for climate-engineering measures targeting high-impact events rather than mean climate properties.
authors: Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland; edouard.davin@env.ethz.ch.
authors: Edouard L
authors: EL
authors: Davin
authors: Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland;
authors: Sonia I
authors: SI
authors: Seneviratne
authors: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE), Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR) 1572 Commissariat à L'Energie Atomique-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, 91191 Gif sur Yvette, France; and.
authors: Philippe
authors: P
authors: Ciais
authors: Environnement Méditerranéen et Modélisation des Agro-Hydrosystémes (EMMAH), UMR 1114, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Université d'Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse (UAPV), 84914 Avignon, France.
authors: Albert
authors: A
authors: Olioso
authors: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE), Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR) 1572 Commissariat à L'Energie Atomique-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, 91191 Gif sur Yvette, France; and.
authors: Tao
authors: T
authors: Wang