Abstract
This study applies the Dynamics of Land System (DLS) model to simulating the land cover under the designed scenarios and then analyzes the effects of land cover conversion on energy flux in the semiarid grassland area of China with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The results indicate that the grassland will show a steadily upgrowing trend under the coordinated environmental sustainability (CES) scenario. Compared to the CES scenario, the rate of increase in grassland cover is lower, while the rate of increase in urban land cover will be higher under the rapid economic growth (REG) scenario. Although the conversion from cropland to grassland will reduce the energy flux, the expansion of urban area and decreasing of forestry area will bring about more energy flux. As a whole, the energy flux of near surface will obviously not change under the CES scenario, and the climate therefore will not be possible to be influenced greatly by land cover change. The energy flux under the REG scenario is higher than that under the CES scenario. Those research conclusions can offer valuable information for the land use planning and climate change adaptation in the semiarid grassland area of China.
Highlights
Climate change is a serious challenge faced by the international community, and the human-induced land cover change is increasingly recognized as having significant effect on the climate system [1,2,3]
It can be concluded that the land use/cover change alters the land roughness, soil hydrological and thermal features, which lead to further change in the land surface energy balance, downward short wave radiation, sensible heat and latent heat, and so forth [17, 18]
The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is developed in two versions, one is for business, another one is for research, and this study adopts the latter one, namely, ARW (Advanced Research WRF), to carry out the relevant simulation
Summary
Climate change is a serious challenge faced by the international community, and the human-induced land cover change is increasingly recognized as having significant effect on the climate system [1,2,3]. Zheng et al found that land cover changes can significantly alter the release of effective surface fluxes by the studies on the impact of land cover on climate using regional climate model [16] According to those researches, it can be concluded that the land use/cover change alters the land roughness, soil hydrological and thermal features, which lead to further change in the land surface energy balance, downward short wave radiation, sensible heat and latent heat, and so forth [17, 18]. To speed up the construction of ecological environment in Western China, the government had taken the policy of returning cropland to forestry area or grassland, which has achieved desirable results. The results will provide scientific basis for the land use planning and climate change mitigation
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