THE INFLUENCE OF FOREST COVER CHANGE ON DECADAL LAND SURFACE TEMPERATURE CHANGES IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON

Deforestation disrupts ecosystem services provided by forests at a regional scale, such as surface temperature regulation. This study evaluated how changes in land surface temperature (LST) from 2003 to 2021 across the Brazilian Amazon varied according to the rate of forest cover change and the amount of regional forest cover. To do so, we used LST data from MODIS, land cover data from MapBiomas, and divided the Amazon region into grid cells of 0.5° spatial resolution. We observed a gradual rise in the incidence and intensity of decadal LST warming as the rate of forest loss increased. The influence of deforestation on LST warming was remarkable in areas where the initial forest cover was greater than 40% and forest cover loss was greater than 0.5 percentage points per year on average. Our findings provide supporting information for forest restoration and conservation initiatives aiming for climate change adaptation.