# Would Forest Regrowth Compensate for Climate Change in the Amazon Basin?
## 4 Conclusions  
This paper examines the regional-scale impacts of potential reforestation on the energy and moisture budgets and precipitation across the Amazon Basin. Through the analysis of changes in regional moisture and heat fluxes, we presented results from regional simulations showing that the land surface and atmosphere are interacting tightly across the basin. We found several principal outcomes. First, the effects of reforestation on the atmosphere were more evident during May-November than December-April. Second, spatial patterns of the changes in fluxes due to reforestation were consistent with the pattern of LCC, with minimal tele-connected impacts. Third, the effects of forest regrowth on the atmosphere were more evident on a monthly time scale. For instance, although at the seasonal scale, the changes in SH were minimal, at the monthly scale, it simulated a decrease by 10 W m\({}^{-2}\). Forest regrowth enhances LH in the region due to an increase in the transpiration rate and surface roughness. In addition, the highest LAI in July highlights the highest influence of LCC on exchanges of both SH and LH starting in July. Fourth, the mean seasonal temperature decreased by up to 1.2 \({}^{\circ}\)C, which is consistent with several studies, e.g., [18, 46, 66]. This decrease in temperature is more obvious in the northeastern side of the basin during December-April. Fifth, reforestation also increased the mean monthly LH by as much as 50 W m\({}^{-2}\) in August in certain areas, while available moisture to the atmosphere increased by 27%. Other studies found equivalent scale results but due to deforestation e.g., [18, 49, 67]. Sixth, seasonal precipitation increased by 5 mm/day in reforested areas in both May-Nov and Dec-Apr, illustrating the causal mechanisms between increased LH and precipitation and emphasizing the mechanisms identified between wet season start and forest cover [68, 69]. Precipitation also increased in the western side of the region, where is constantly wet, by forest regrowth. This indicates tele-connected influence of vegetation recovery on the atmosphere behavior. Our results show that by altering the land surface biophysical characteristics--in this case, reforestation--temperature, LH and SH fluxes, moisture at the surface, and precipitation are strongly modified. With a higher proportion of LH, PBL cools down, increases its humidity, and becomes shallower. This further affects the transfer of moisture and energy from the surface to the boundary layer, even influencing transfer to the free atmosphere. Although unavailable, parameters for young moist forests would improve these simulations further. Due to tele-connection mechanisms, changing the exchange of energy and moisture balance between the PBL and the free atmosphere influences tropical convection, impacting the intensity of high-level tropical outflow and providing a mechanism that could affect the extratropics [70]. Consequently, changes in the surface fluxes of energy and moisture due to LCC causes impacts beyond the areas of disturbances. Thus, it would be reasonable if deforestation forces disturbances in the general circulation, including the Hadley and Walker-type circulations; the mechanisms for these disturbances are illustrated in Ref. [67]. Future work needs to focus on identifying the coupling strength of land cover changes to atmospheric processes to identify areas where rainfall is most sensitive to changes in the land surface and examining the extent to which changes in the regional scale can alter the circumstances at the larger scale. Also, different time scales from hourly to daily to monthly evaluations should be considered to distinguish the sensitivity of time-sensitive processes such as cloud formation and convection, which determine the amount and timing of precipitation to reforestation. Conceptualization, N.H.; methodology, N.H., N.M. and P.N. ; software, N.H.; validation, N.H.; formal analysis, N.H. and N.M.; investigation, N.H., N.M. and P.N.