According to Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC, 2021, www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/), an increase in the occurrence of extreme climate events such as droughts, heavy rainfalls and heat waves has been observed in recent years. This has devastating environmental and socio-economic effects. One of the possible contributors to this increase in occurrence of extreme events is the change of land cover, which influences the exchange of energy, water and CO2 between the terrestrial biosphere system and the atmosphere. Some recent studies suggest that between 1992 and 2018, around 5% of the continental ice-free surface area has undergone a change in land cover. This change in land surface characteristics has been shown to affect temperature, humidity and precipitation. However, most of the existing studies focus on deforestation and its effect on mean climate parameters. Therefore, relatively little is known on the effect of different types of land cover change on the climate variability on a global scale. Hence, this research aims at deepening the understanding of these complex interactions on a global scale using a comprehensive set of climatic, soil and remote sensing data.
Figure caption. Time lapse of yearly land cover change in Northern Germany between 1992 and 2020.