Regional climate response to land surface changes after harvest in the North China Plain under present and possible future climate conditions

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the impacts of land use alterations from harvesting practices on the regional surface climate over the North China Plain. The surface climate responses after harvest in June in regions where double-cropping is practiced were evaluated using observations and model simulations with the global climate model HadGEM2-Atmosphere. Responses were modeled under both present and possible future climate conditions. In the model, double-cropping was represented using the monthly varying fraction of vegetation. This contributed to an improvement in the model simulation over East Asia. Modeling results showed that the land surface was warmer and drier after harvest, and these simulation results were consistent with observations. The bare soil surface after harvest in June had biophysical impacts on the surface climate that were mediated by decreasing evapotranspiration and latent heat flux effects, which increased surface air temperatures and decreased surface humidity. An increase in shortwave radiation also contributed to the rise in temperatures. Under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenarios for possible future climate conditions, land conversion induced additional warming in addition to greenhouse gases induced global warming. The RCP 8.5 and RCP 2.6 scenarios demonstrated a warming of 1.0°C and 1.4°C due to harvesting practices in June, respectively. The response magnitude was affected by the climate conditions in each RCP. Our results suggest that potential impacts of harvest on the local climate need to be considered in future projections of CO 2 -induced warming on a regional scale.

Effects of modified soil water‐heat physics on RegCM4 simulations of climate over the Tibetan Plateau

“…Land surface properties affect the climate and atmosphere mainly because they have a large influence on local circulation and the monsoon [Koster et al, 2004;Suh and Lee, 2004;Kim and Wang, 2007;Jimenez et al, 2014;Hirsch et al, 2014]. Land surface condition changes such as soil moisture or land use/land cover changes can influence surface temperature and humidity by means of the partitioning of the surface energy fluxes [Koster et al, 2004;Leung et al, 2011;Cho et al, 2014;Hirsch et al, 2014]. Such changes of surface energy fluxes over land then affect both local convection and the monsoon conditions [Kim and Wang, 2007;Lee et al, 2011].…”

Atmospheric responses to idealized urban land surface forcing in eastern China during the boreal spring

“…In terms of LULCC, Eliseev and Mokhov [] pointed out that a LULCC‐related biogeochemical feedback also plays an important role in impacting atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) content to cause climatic responses. Cho et al [] also suggested that CO 2 ‐induced warming should be taken into consideration in studying the regional climatic effect of land surface change. Therefore, considering these anthropogenic forcing factors comprehensively will help the detection and attribution of past climate features and the projection of future climate changes.…”

Divergent climate feedbacks on winter wheat growing and dormancy periods as affected by sowing date in the North China Plain

“…Liu et al, 2017), significantly impacted the patterns of LH and SH and then the changes of moderate to light rainfall (Zhang et al, 2015). Harvest shifted the key influence factors of the radiative balance and evaporative fraction from leaf area and soil-atmosphere temperature difference to soil moisture in US winter wheat (Bagley et al, 2017) and shifted radiative forcing with the potential to warm the atmosphere by 1-1.4 • C through declining LH in the NCP (Cho et al, 2014). The influence of phenology on climate feedback through surface biophysical process at the local or regional scale is worthy of further studies (F. .…”