Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
it is difficult to simulate the regional climate at small scales precisely with the
GCMs due to the limitation of the resolution. Besides, the resolution is very low in
the GCMs (above 100-200 km), so they cannot be used to describe the complex
terrain and land surface characteristics. Therefore, there is some bias and uncer-
tainties in the simulation of the regional climate change with the GCMs (Brovkin
et al.
2006
), which influences the credibility of the simulation result.
Regional climate models were proposed during the late 1980s and the early
1990s and have become important tools in regional climate researches. Regional
climate model can describe the detailed characteristics of the land surface with
high resolution, and also can more reasonably simulate the regional forcing, such
as terrain, rivers/lakes and urban buildings. Besides, they reflect the climate
characteristics caused by strong regional forcing; consequently, they have been
widely used in regional climate researches.
More attention has been paid to the response of regional and local climate to
land use changes rather than that of global climate. However, the resolution of the
current climate models, e.g., the global ocean-atmosphere-land system with high
complexity and the Earth system model of the moderate complexity, is generally
too low when the model is used at local and regional scales. In recent decades,
high resolution regional climate models, e.g., RegCM2, RegCM3, RAMS, RIEMS,
RegCM-NCC and IPCR-RegCM, have been widely used in the research on
regional land use change. For example, these models have been applied to the
desertification experiment, deforestation experiment in the tropic rainforest, veg-
etation restoration experiment, etc. Besides, some researchers analyze the impacts
of land use change on regional temperature and precipitation, and the influence of
land use changes on the fundamental regional climate characteristics at the
national scale (Himiyama and Bicik
2012
; Diffenbaugh
2009
) by comparing the
current land use data and the data of potential natural vegetation.
1.3.2 Research on the Integration of the Improved Land
Surface Model and Regional Climate Model
Although some regional climate models have higher resolution (below 100 km),
there are still a lot of great challenges in the simulation of the land surface
processes. For example, it is still necessary to represent the land surface process
which is very important to the climate at the small scales, although there is little
evidence that the simulation with climate models can provide reliable information
at small scales. Since the atmosphere and the land surface integrate into an
inseparable whole system through the exchange of energy, dynamics and moisture,
it is the key to the successful simulation with the regional model to construct a land
