XXIst century projections of global forest soil and canopy air temperature offsets (CLM5.1, SSP5-8.5)

The following dataset allows to reproduce the figures in Hes et al 2024 . It is generated by CLM5.1 simulations following the SSP5-8.5 scenario and contains the temperature offset between forest and grassland for soil temperature Tg  and canopy air temperature Tc. The offset temperatures (∆Tg and ∆Tc) are defined as the difference between the internal temperature of the forest tile minus the internal temperature of the grassland tile. For each grid cell, we compute the difference between the area-weighted average temperature in forests, and the area-weighted average temperature over grassland.

We define the offset for minimum ∆Tg,min, maximum ∆Tg,max and mean ∆Tg,mean soil temperature. ∆Tg,min (respectively, ∆Tg,mean and ∆Tg,max) is derived by selecting the monthly minimum (respectively, mean and maximum) of the 6-hourly forest ∆Tg and subtracting the simultaneous Tg over grassland within a grid cell. We consider all grid cells that contain both more than 0% of tree PFT cover (forest) and more than 0% of grass PFT cover (grassland). Tc offsets (∆Tc,min,∆Tc,max and ∆Tc,mean) are generated using the same method although we note that unlike for ∆Tg, the differentiation between forest and grassland Tc also encapsulates a difference in height.Here, we provide monthly data for minimum, maximum and mean soil and canopy air temperature for 3 forest PFT-based biomes (boreal, temperate and tropical) and for all forest PFTs (global).For more information, refer to the Methods is Hes et al 2024