The influence of land surface changes on regional climate in Northwest China

Abstract

Land surface changes effect the regional climate due to the complex coupling of land-atmosphere interactions. From 1995 to 2000, a decrease in the vegetation density and an increase in ground-level thermodynamic activity has been documented by multiple data sources in Northwest China, including meteorological, reanalysis from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) satellite remote sensing data. As the ground-level thermodynamic activity increases, humid air from the surrounding regions converge toward desert (and semi-desert) regions, causing areas with high vegetation cover to become gradually more arid. Furthermore, land surface changes in Northwest China are responsible for a decrease in total cloud cover, a decline in the fraction of low and middle clouds, an increase in high cloud cover (due to thermodynamic activity) and other regional climatic adaptations. It is proposed that, beginning in 1995, these cloud cover changes contributed to a “green-house” effect, leading to the rapid air temperature increases and other regional climate impacts that have been observed over Northwest China.