Comparison of cropland and forest surface temperatures across the conterminous United States
Global climate models (GCM) investigating the effects of land cover on climate have found that replacing extra-tropical forest with cropland promotes cooling. We compared cropland and forest surface temperatures across the continental United States in 16 cells that were approximately 1°×2° using 1km² MODIS land surface temperature (LST) data and land cover from the 0.0009km² National Land Cover Database (NLCD). We found that forest surface temperatures tended to be cooler than cropland surface temperatures. This relationship held for spring, summer, fall, and annually.