Abstract
Anthropogenic land use affects climate by altering the energy balance of the Earth’s surface. In temperate regions, cooling from increased albedo is a common result of historical land-use change. However, this albedo cooling effect is dependent mainly on the exposure of snow cover following forest canopy removal and may change over time due to simultaneous changes in both land cover and snow cover. In this paper, we combine modern remote sensing data and historical records, incorporating over 100 years of realized land use and climatic change into an empirical assessment of centennial-scale surface forcings in the Upper Midwestern USA. We show that, although increases in surface albedo cooled through strong negative shortwave forcings, those forcings were reduced over time by a combination of forest regrowth and snow-cover loss. Deforestation cooled strongly (− 5.3 Wm −2 ) and mainly in winter, while composition shift cooled less strongly (− 3.03 Wm −2 ) and mainly in summer. Combined, changes in albedo due to deforestation, shifts in species composition, and the return of historical forest cover resulted in − 2.81 Wm −2 of regional radiative cooling, 55% less than full deforestation. Forcings due to changing vegetation were further reduced by 0.32 Wm −2 of warming from a shortened snow-covered season and a thinning of seasonal snowpack. Our findings suggest that accounting for long-term changes in land cover and snow cover reduces the estimated cooling impact of deforestation, with implications for long-term land-use planning.