Abstract
Land use land cover (LULC) change is one of the main drivers contributing to global climate change. It alters surface hydrology and energy balance between the land surface and atmosphere. However, its impacts on surface air temperature have not been well understood in a dynamic region of LULC changes like Southeast Asia (SEA). This study quantitatively examined the contribution of LULC changes to temperature trends in Myanmar and Thailand as the typical parts of SEA during 1990–2019 using the “observation minus reanalysis” (OMR) method. Overall, the average maximum, mean, and minimum temperatures obtained from OMR trends indicate significant warming trends of 0.17 °C/10a, 0.20 °C/10a, and 0.42 °C/10a, respectively. The rates of minimum temperature increase were larger than maximum and mean temperatures. The decreases of forest land and cropland, and the expansions of settlements land fractions were strongly correlated with the observed warming trends. It was found that the effects of forest land converted to settlement land on warming were higher than forest conversion to cropland. A comprehensive discussion on this study could provide scientific information for the future development of more sustainable land use planning to mitigate and adapt to climate change at the local and national levels.
Highlights
Global warming is contributed by 90% from human activities, of which land use land cover (LULC) change is one of the major anthropogenic drivers [1]
The rise of land surface air temperatures nearly twice as much as the global average temperature since the pre-industrial period has partly attributed to the LULC changes [2]
The reanalysis data are subject to high uncertainty because of the coarse spatial resolution and assimilation of limited observation [49,50,51]
Summary
Global warming is contributed by 90% from human activities, of which land use land cover (LULC) change is one of the major anthropogenic drivers [1]. LULC changes have been linked to atmospheric aerosol emissions, which can modify the surface temperature through both direct and indirect effects [3]. Conversion of forest land into cropland, pasture, or grassland reduces the aerodynamic roughness of the landscape and decreases both the capture of precipitation on the canopy and root extraction. This leads to reduced evaporation and fluxes of water and latent heat from the surface to the atmosphere and subsequently increasing air temperature. It is essential to understand the roles of LULC changes and evaluate their impacts, especially
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