Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
LUCC and the climate response. However, there have been very few relevant
researches.
It has long been known that land use changes caused by human activities such
as deforestation, and agriculture practices have some effects on climate (Foley
et al.
2005
; Pachauri and Reisinger
2007
; Feddema et al.
2005
; Bonan
2008
;
Kueppers and Snyder
2012
). Land use changes influence climate by changing the
properties of land surface which is not only the direct heat source of the tropo-
sphere, but also one of the main sources of atmospheric vapor water (Betts et al.
1996
). Therefore, change of land surface parameters will directly affect land
surface-atmosphere interaction and consequently alter thermodynamic and
dynamic characteristics of the atmosphere, and finally lead to different climate
processes and patterns. Land use activities have significantly changed regional
land cover, thus leading to climate changes. For example, deforestation, affores-
tation, reclamation and urbanization, all influence the energy budget and Bowen
ratio of land surface, the distribution of the precipitation among the soil water,
runoff and evapotranspiration (Phillips et al.
2009
; Pielke et al.
2007
; Arora and
Montenegro
2011
). Human-induced land use activities also have important influ-
ence on regional climate system, e.g., temperature, evapotranspiration, precipita-
tion, wind field, atmospheric pressure etc., especially temperature and precipitation
(Pielke et al.
2007
; Arora and Montenegro
2011
; Degu et al.
2011
). In addition,
recent researches suggest that LUCC may affect the extremes in temperature and
precipitation (Woldemichael et al.
2012
).
LUCC affects local, regional and global climate system through various bio-
geochemical and biogeophysical processes (Arora and Montenegro
2011
;
Meiyappan and Jain
2012
). For example, biogeochemical process can indirectly
affect climate by altering the rate of the biogeochemical cycle and thereby
changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere. Besides, it may also affect
the climate through the absorption or emission of greenhouse gases (Friedlingstein
and Prentice
2010
). By contrast, biogeophysical process directly affects the
physical parameters that determine absorption and disposition of energy at land
surface (Arora and Montenegro
2011
). For example, it influences albedo or
reflective properties of land surface (Dirmeyer and Shukla
1994
), alters absorption
rate of solar radiation and hence influences energy availability at land surface
(Georgescu et al.
2011
). In addition, surface hydrology and vegetation transpira-
tion characteristics also affect how received energy is distributed into latent and
sensible heat fluxes (Feddema et al.
2005
). Vegetation structure can affect surface
roughness and thereby alter momentum and heat transport.
Owing to the limitation of knowledge and the lack of interdisciplinary cooper-
ation, there is still insufficient understanding of the procedures mechanism of cli-
mate process and how LUCC influences regional climate and consequently
influences global climate (Feddema et al.
2005
). There are parallel studies of bio-
geochemical and biogeophysical effects of land use changes on climate in their
