{
  "abstract": "Land use and cover change (LUCC) can exacerbate cloud-mediated climate warming, yet long-term cloud responses to contrasting LUCC pathways remain poorly quantified. Here, we perform transient simulations based on the fully coupled Community Earth System Model (CESM) under the SSP1-2.6 scenario to quantify how long-term cloud trends respond to large-scale idealized afforestation (AF50, conversion of grassland or shrubland to forest), idealized bioenergy expansion (BE50, sugarcane expansion), and realistic afforestation (REAL). AF50 drives a pronounced vertical restructuring of cloud trends, steepening mid-level cloud decline and accelerating low-level cloud loss from −0.0153 ± 0.0030 % yr ⁻¹ in the control simulation (CTL) to −0.0175 ± 0.0036 % yr ⁻¹ , corresponding to 1.14 times the CTL rate globally and 1.52 times over land. Concurrently, it amplifies the global increase in high-level clouds by a factor of 1.5 and accelerates total cloud cover loss over land. Bioenergy expansion induces a similar but weaker vertical shift, whereas realistic afforestation slows the loss rate of low- and mid-level clouds and suppresses regional warming. Interpretable machine learning identifies changes in relative-humidity trends as the highest-ranked predictor of LUCC-induced changes in low-level cloud trends, with relative importance values of 20.4 %, 20.4 %, and 15.3 % under AF50, BE50, and REAL, respectively. The simulated low-level cloud response is consistent with surface darkening reducing albedo, increasing sensible heat flux, deepening the planetary boundary layer, enhancing dry-air entrainment, and raising the lifting condensation level relative to the boundary-layer top, thereby suppressing low-level cloud formation. The cloud response is also modulated by remote atmospheric adjustment. The accelerated depletion of low-level clouds strengthens positive shortwave cloud radiative forcing, while the concurrent increase in high-level clouds enhances longwave warming, together amplifying regional warming hotspots. These results demonstrate that larger-scale forest expansion does not necessarily provide greater climate cooling benefits; the sign and magnitude of the outcome depend not only on the latitude band of land conversion but, more critically, on the type of land conversion.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (Beijing, China)",
    "University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing, China)"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 4,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Nanjian Liu"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Zhixin Hao"
    },
    {
      "name": "Siyou Xia",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-9854-9960"
    },
    {
      "name": "Peng Zhao",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-1873-1667"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9zkn6635f123k.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.5194/acp-26-14133-2026",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "9zkn6635f123k",
  "issns": [
    "1680-7324"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/26/14133/2026/",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2306|Atmospheric aerosols and clouds"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7160636761",
  "pdf_url": "https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/26/14133/2026/acp-26-14133-2026.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-09",
  "publisher": "Copernicus GmbH",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9zkn6635f123k.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:20:34Z",
      "native_id": "10.5194/acp-26-14133-2026",
      "source": "crossref",
      "url": "https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/26/14133/2026/"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "earth",
      "origin": "openalex:2306|Atmospheric aerosols and clouds",
      "subfield": "climate"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Forest and bioenergy expansion amplifies climate warming by accelerating regional cloud loss",
  "title_text": "Forest and bioenergy expansion amplifies climate warming by accelerating regional cloud loss",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:20:34Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/9zkn6635f123k",
  "venue": "Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics",
  "versions": [
    {
      "doi": "10.5194/egusphere-2026-367",
      "pid": null,
      "relation": "preprint",
      "title": null,
      "venue": null
    }
  ]
}