The role of land surface processes in regional climate change: a case study of future land cover change over south western Australia

Climate change inevitably leads to changes in hydrothermal circulation. However, thermal-hydrologic exchanging caused by land cover change has also undergone ineligible changes. Therefore, studying the comprehensive effects of climate and land cover changes on land surface water and heat exchanges enables us to well understand the formation mechanism of regional climate and predict climate change with fewer uncertainties. This study investigated the land surface thermal-hydrologic exchange across southern China for the next 40 years using a land surface model (ecosystem-atmosphere simulation scheme (EASS)). Our findings are summarized as follows. (i) Spatiotemporal variation patterns of sensible heat flux (H) and evapotranspiration (ET) under the land cover scenarios (A2a or B2a) and climate change scenario (A1B) are unanimous. (ii) BothHand ET take on a single peak pattern, and the peak occurs in June or July. (iii) Based on the regional interannual variability analysis,Hdisplays a downward trend (10%) and ET presents an increasing trend (15%). (iv) The annual averageHand ET would, respectively, increase and decrease by about 10% when woodland converts to the cultivated land. Through this study, we recognize that land surface water and heat exchanges are affected greatly by the future climate change as well as land cover change.

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Identifying credible and diverse GCMs for regional climate change studies—case study: Northeastern United States

Climatic Change ◽

10.1007/s10584-019-02411-y ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 154 (3-4) ◽

pp. 367-386 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Ambarish V. Karmalkar ◽

Jeanne M. Thibeault ◽

Alexander M. Bryan ◽

Anji Seth

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

Regional Climate ◽

Regional Climate Change ◽

Northeastern United States

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Terrestrial Processes and Their Roles in Climate Change

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.825 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Nathalie de Noblet-Ducoudré ◽

Andrew J. Pitman

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Greenhouse Gases ◽

Land Surface ◽

Seasonal Cycle ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

Surface Processes ◽

Climate Modelling ◽

Climate Simulations

The land surface is where humans live and where they source their water and food. The land surface plays an important role in climate and anthropogenic climate change both as a driver of change and as a system that responds to change. Soils and vegetation influence the exchanges of water, energy and carbon between the land and the overlying atmosphere and thus contribute to the variability and the evolution of climate. But the role of the land in climate is scale dependent which means different processes matter on different timescales and over different spatial scales. Climate change alters the functioning of the land with changes in the seasonal cycle of ecosystem growth, in the extent of forests, the melt of permafrost, the magnitude and frequency of disturbances such as fire, drought, … Those changes feedback into climate at both the global and the regional scales. In addition, humans perturb the land conditions via deforestation, irrigation, urbanization, … and this directly affects climatic conditions at the local to regional scales with also sometimes global consequences via the release of greenhouse gases. Not accounting for land surface processes in climate modelling, whatever the spatial scale, will result in biases in the climate simulations.

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