Abstract
The West Development Policy being implemented in China causes significant land use and land cover (LULC) changes in West China, of which the two most important types of LULC change are replacing farmland and re-greening the desertification land with forest or grass. This paper modifies the prevailing regional climate model (RCM) by updating its lower boundary conditions with the up-to-date satellite database of the Global Land Cover Characteristics Database (GLCCD) created by the United States Geological Survey and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The modified RCM is used to simulate the possible regional climate changes due to the LULC variations. The preliminary results can be summarized as that the two main types of LULC variation, replacing farmland and greening the desertification lands with forest or grass in west China, will affect the regional climate mostly in northwest and north China, where the surface temperature will decrease and the precipitation will increase. The regional climate adjustments in South, Southwest China and on the Tibet Plateau are uncertain.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Chaney, J. G., W. J. Quick, S. H. Chow, and T. Kornfield, 1977: A comparative study of the effects of albedo change on drought in semi arid regions. J. Atmos. Sci., 34, 1366–1388.
Chase, T. N., R. A. Pielke, T. G. F. Kittel, R. R. Nemani, and S. W. Running, 2000: Simulation impacts of historical land cover changes on global climate in northern winter. Climate Dynamics, 16, 93–105.
Dickinson, R. E., A. Henderson-Sellers, and P. J. Kennedy, 1993: Biosphere-Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (DATS) Version le as Coupled to NCAR Community Climate Model, NCAR Technical Note TN-387+STR. 72pp.
Edinshink, J. C., and J. L. Faundoen, 1994: The 1 km AVHRR Global land data first stages in implementation. Int. Jour. Remote Sens., 15, 3443–3462
Fu C. B., Wei H. L., Qian Y., and Chen M., 1999: Documentation on a Regional Integrated Environmental System (RIEMS Version 1), TEACOM Report (Seventh), START Regional Center for Temperate East Asia, Beijing, China No.1, 1 26.
Gash, J. H. C., and C. A. Nobre, 1997: Climatic effects of Amazonian deforestation: some results from ABRA-COS. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 78, 823–830.
Grell, G. A., J. Dudhia, and D. R. Stauffer, 1994: A description of the fifth-generation Penn State/ NCAR meso-scale model (MM5). NCAR Technical Note, NCAR/TN-398+STR, 117pp.
Giorgi F., and G. T. Bates, 1989: The climatological skill of a regional model over complex terrain. Mon. Wea. Rev., 117, 2325–2347.
Kiehl, J. T., B. Bouville, J. Hack, P. Rasch, and D. Williamson, 1996: Description of the NCAR Community Climate Model (CCM3), NCAR Technical Note NCAR/TN-420 + STR, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Jiang J., and Qian Y. F., 1999: The study on the interannual variation and the mechanism of the South China Sea monsoon. Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, 16, 544–558.
Lean, J., and P. R. Rowntree, 1993: A GCM simulation of the impact of Amazonian deforestation on climate change using an improved canopy representation. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., 199, 509–530.
Lean, J., and P. R. Rowntree, 1997: Understanding the sensitivity of a GCM simulation of Amazonian deforestation to the specification of vegetation and soil characteristics. J. Climate, 10, 1216–1235.
Liu H.,and Wu G. X., 1997: Impacts of land surface on climate of July and onset of summer monsoon. Advances in Atmospheric. Sciences, 14, 289–309.
Loveland, T. R., and A. S. Belward,, 1997. The IGBPDIS global 1km land cover data set, Discover: first results. Int. J. Remote Sens., 18, 3289–3295.
McGuffie, K., A. HendersonSellers, H. Zhang, T. B. Durbidge, and A. J. Pitman, 1995: Global climate sensitivity to tropical deforestation. Global and Planetary Change, 10, 97–128.
Nemani, R., and S. Running, 1997: Land cover characterization using multi-temporal RED, NEAR-IR, and Thermal-IR data from NOAA/AVHRR. Ecological Application, 7, 79–90.
Nicholson, S. E., C. J. Tucker, and M. B. Ba, 1998: Desertification, drought, and surface vegetation: An example from the west African Sahel. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 79, 815–829.
Pitman, A. J., and M. Zhao, 2000: The relative impact of observed change in land cover and carbon dioxide as simulated by a climate model. Geophysical Research Letters, 27, 1267–1270.
Wang H. J., Y. F. Li, and A. K. Lo, 2001: A meso-scale simulation of the effects of boreal forest ecosystem on the lower atmosphere. Acta Meteorological Sinica, 15, 116–128.
Wei H. L., and Fu C. B., 1998: Study of the sensitivity of a regional model in response to land cover change over northern China. Hydrological Processes, 12, 2249–2265.
Xinmei, J., T. J. Lyons, and R. C. G. Smith, 1995: Meteorological impact of replacing native perennial vegetation with annual agricultural species. Hydrological Processes, 9, 645–654.
Zhao J., 1984: Physical Geography of China, China Advanced Education Press, Beijing, 413pp. (in Chinese)
Zheng W. Z., and Ni Y. Q., 1999: A numerical experiment study for effects of the grassland desertification on summer drought in North China. Advances in Atmospheric Sciences., 16(2), 251–262.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shi, W., Wang, H. The Regional Climate Effects of Replacing Farmland and Re-greening the Desertification Lands with Forest or Grass in West China. Adv. Atmos. Sci. 20, 45–54 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03342049
Received:
Revised:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03342049