The LULC characterization and regional climate simulation

Abstract

With a new satellite database that characterizes the significant land use and land cover (LULC) variations induced by the Western Region Development Strategy and the corresponding ecological engineering in China, a regional climate model is used to simulate their impacts on regulating the structure of summer monsoon system in East Asia and the relevant regional climate changes. The simulation shows that the East Asian summer monsoon might be enhanced because of the large scale LULC variations in western China, which is favorable to the water vapor transfer from the adjacent oceanic areas to the continent of China. The humidity increase in China continent can be partly attributed to the vegetation evapotranspiration but mostly to the water vapor transfer of the enhanced monsoon circulation. The integrated impact of LULC variations on temperature, wind speed as well as humidity are not only limited to the west part of China, but to the adjacent areas where the LULC does not vary. Neither is such impact limited to the atmospheric boundary layer; it can reach to a higher level of 850hpa (about 1500m) for humidity and wet hydrostatic energy and much higher for temperature, pressure and wind speed.