Sensitivity of temperature and precipitation characteristics to land use classification over the Taklimakan Desert and surrounding area

Abstract

The Taklimakan Desert (TD) is the largest desert in China, which has a great influence on the weather and climate in the surrounding oases. To further study the impact of the unique underlying surface and artificial green space of TD on the weather and climate of the desert and its surrounding oases, we selected the winter and summer months to carry out a continuous simulation experiment using a high-resolution numerical model. The changes of land use in TD (the land use category denoted as “barren or sparsely vegetated” was modified to “shrub land”) have direct impacts on the surface heat flux, which affect the stability of the lower atmosphere and water vapor conditions, thus affected precipitation. Both sensible heat flux and latent heat flux in the desert increased in winter and summer after changing the land use type, while in areas with unchanged land use around the desert have a slight weakening in the net radiation flux. The daily temperatures increased as a whole, especially in the hinterland and south of the desert, and the warming amplitude in winter and summer was basically same. In the Kunlun Mountains, the western desert, and the oasis area to the west of the desert, the lower atmosphere became warmer and wetter, which led to a significant increase in monthly cumulative precipitation in July, with an increase in some areas greater than 36 mm which is significant for a desert area.