Atmospheric Boundary Layer Control on Forest Thermal Properties

作者：Matteo Detto, Christopher J. Still, Amilcare Porporato · 发表于：Global Change Biology · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.1111/gcb.70841 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics、Urban Heat Island Mitigation、Remote Sensing in Agriculture

ABSTRACT Forest canopy, air temperatures and air humidity (, , and ) play a central rol in regulating energy and gas exchange between vegetation and the atmosphere. Although often treated as independent drivers of canopy processes, and are dynamically coupled to via surface energy fluxes and atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) development. We investigated how plant physiology mediates this coupling. Using data from a tropical ecosystem, we studied a process‐based forest model dynamically coupled with an ABL growth model to simulate diurnal interactions between the canopy and the atmosphere. We systematically varied plant traits related to water use and thermal regulation to assess their effects on coupling and feedback. We focused on three metrics: the slope of the relationship, the peak of reached during the day and the lag between the maximum and , indicating hysteresis. Conservative water use, by reducing transpiration, leads to greater canopy warming, which intensifies sensible heat flux and accelerates ABL growth. This, in turn, raises near‐surface air temperature and vapor pressure deficit (VPD), amplifying thermal and water stress. In contrast, greater water use enhances evaporative cooling and slows ABL development, thereby moderating these feedback. Surprisingly, the slope of the relationship is quite insensitive to plant water‐use syndromes. This insight extends beyond modeling. Empirical studies often treat and VPD as independent drivers of transpiration, photosynthes...