Evaluating the impacts of land use and land cover changes on surface air temperature using the WRF-mosaic approach

Satellite-derived land surface data in 1980 and 2010 were used to represent land use and land cover（LULC） changes caused by the rapid economic development and human activities that have occurred over the past few decades in East Asia and China. The effects of LULC changes on the radiation budget and 2-m surface air temperature（SAT） were explored for the period using the Weather Research and Forecasting（WRF） model. The mosaic approach, which considers the N-most abundant land use types within a model grid cell（here, N = 3） and precisely describes the subgridscale LULC changes, was adopted in the integrations. The impacts of LULC changes based on two 36-year integrations showed that SAT generally decreased, with the sole exception being over eastern China, resulting in decreased SAT in China（-0.062 °C） and East Asian land areas（EAL,-0.061 °C）. The LULC changes induced changes in albedo, which influenced the radiation budget. The radiative forcings at the top of the atmosphere were-0.56 W m-2 across the whole of China, and-0.50 W m-2 over EAL. Meanwhile, the altered roughness length mainly influenced near-surface wind speeds, large-scale and upward moisture fluxes, latent heat fluxes, and cloud fractions at different altitudes. Though the impacts caused by the LULC changes were generally smaller at regional scales, the values at local scales were much stronger.

如何量化土地利用/覆盖变化(LUCC)对区域气候的影响,是人类活动影响气候变化研究中的一个难点。本文利用卫星遥感反映过去三十年东亚区域土地利用变化数据,基于Mosaic近似考虑土地利用及其变化次网格尺度过程,量化了LUCC对地表辐射收支及气温的影响。过去三十年土地利用/覆盖变化对东亚区域总体呈降温效应(中国东部地区增温效应),LUCC导致的地表反照率变化影响地表辐射收支,中国和东亚区域的辐射强迫分别为-0.56 W m^(-2)和-0.50 W m^(-2)。