Abordando los efectos biofísicos de los bosques en políticas climáticas nacionales: Oportunidades en Chile

The document argues that forests influence climate not only through carbon sequestration but also through biophysical processes—albedo, evapotranspiration, surface roughness, and aerosols—which affect temperature and precipitation. In Chile, the conversion of native vegetation to crops and pastures has been linked to local surface temperature increases of up to 4°C. The authors suggest that Chile can enhance its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), Long-Term Climate Strategy, and REDD+ strategies by incorporating these non-carbon effects as performance indicators and adaptation goals. Specifically, they recommend prioritizing native species over exotic plantations to maximize cooling effects and utilizing the ARClim digital platform to identify areas at risk of non-carbon warming.

• Forests influence local and global climate through four primary non-carbon biophysical processes: albedo (solar energy reflection), evapotranspiration (moisture release for cooling), surface roughness (wind turbulence that lifts heat), and the release of aerosols (particles affecting clouds and ozone).
• Deforestation has significant scale-dependent impacts: tropical deforestation contributes 50% more to global warming than carbon emissions alone; regionally, it can reduce downstream precipitation (e.g., Amazonian deforestation affecting Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina); and locally, it can increase peak daily temperatures by over 7.6°C.
• Chile has lost over 40% of its tree cover over recent centuries, with the sclerophyllous forest and scrubland in the central region losing more than 80% of its original natural extent.
• Local deforestation in Chile has contributed to temperature increases; converting Chilean scrubland resulted in an average surface temperature increase of 1.4°C during the dry season, reaching up to 4°C in central areas where native vegetation was replaced by pastures and crops.
• Chile's NDC goals for planting 200,000 hectares of new forests by 2030 could be improved by prioritizing native species over exotic ones, as exotic pine plantations (which already cover 1.3 million hectares in Chile) provide limited climate benefits due to lower albedo.
• The ARClim digital risk assessment platform, which currently tracks climate impacts at a 5-kilometer resolution, could be expanded to include deforestation and its specific effect on temperature increases to prioritize adaptation measures.
• Chile's REDD+ strategy (ENCCRV) and the '+Bosques' results-based payment project (investing 63 million USD in 25,000 hectares) currently rely solely on carbon emissions and sequestration as mitigation indicators, ignoring biophysical cooling benefits.

APA

Haller, V., & Seymour, F. (n.d.). Abordando los efectos biofísicos de los bosques en políticas climáticas nacionales: Oportunidades en Chile. World Resources Institute. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2024-02/addressing-biophysical-effects-of-forests-national-climate-policies-chile-portuguese.pdf

Chicago

Haller, Vincent, and Frances Seymour. Abordando los efectos biofísicos de los bosques en políticas climáticas nacionales: Oportunidades en Chile. World Resources Institute, n.d. https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2024-02/addressing-biophysical-effects-of-forests-national-climate-policies-chile-portuguese.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Haller |first1=Vincent |last2=Seymour |first2=Frances |title=Abordando los efectos biofísicos de los bosques en políticas climáticas nacionales: Oportunidades en Chile |publisher=World Resources Institute |url=https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2024-02/addressing-biophysical-effects-of-forests-national-climate-policies-chile-portuguese.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hallerndabordando, author = {Haller, Vincent and Seymour, Frances}, title = {{Abordando los efectos biofísicos de los bosques en políticas climáticas nacionales: Oportunidades en Chile}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://files.wri.org/d8/s3fs-public/2024-02/addressing-biophysical-effects-of-forests-national-climate-policies-chile-portuguese.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }