The influence of land-use change and landscape dynamics on the climate system: relevance to climate-change policy beyond the radiative effect of greenhouse gases

Pielke, Roger A.; Marland, Gregg; Betts, Richard; Chase, Thomas N.; Eastman, J. L.; Niles, John O.; Niyogi, Dev; Running, Steven W.

doi:10.1098/rsta.2002.1027

Cited by 692 publications

(425 citation statements)

References 20 publications

(22 reference statements)

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“…Land use/land cover change mechanisms include both transformation of natural land surfaces to those serving human needs (i.e., direct anthropogenic change; e.g., conversion of tropical forest to agriculture) as well as changes in land cover on longer time scales that are due to biogeophysical feedbacks between atmosphere and land (i.e., indirect change; Cramer et al 2001;Foley et al 2005). Global and regional models have been used extensively to investigate effects of direct and indirect land use/land cover change mechanisms on climate (Copeland et al 1996;Betts 2001;Eastman et al 2001;Pielke et al 2002;Feddema et al 2005). However, all of these studies have focused on land use/land cover related to changes in vegetation types.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Urban Parameterization for a Global Climate Model. Part I: Formulation and Evaluation for Two Cities

Oleson

Bonan

Feddema

et al. 2008

Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology

251

210

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Urbanization, the expansion of built-up areas, is an important yet less-studied aspect of land use/land cover change in climate science. To date, most global climate models used to evaluate effects of land use/land cover change on climate do not include an urban parameterization. Here, the authors describe the formulation and evaluation of a parameterization of urban areas that is incorporated into the Community Land Model, the land surface component of the Community Climate System Model. The model is designed to be simple enough to be compatible with structural and computational constraints of a land surface model coupled to a global climate model yet complex enough to explore physically based processes known to be important in determining urban climatology. The city representation is based upon the "urban canyon" concept, which consists of roofs, sunlit and shaded walls, and canyon floor. The canyon floor is divided into pervious (e.g., residential lawns, parks) and impervious (e.g., roads, parking lots, sidewalks) fractions. Trapping of longwave radiation by canyon surfaces and solar radiation absorption and reflection is determined by accounting for multiple reflections. Separate energy balances and surface temperatures are determined for each canyon facet. A one-dimensional heat conduction equation is solved numerically for a 10-layer column to determine conduction fluxes into and out of canyon surfaces. Model performance is evaluated against measured fluxes and temperatures from two urban sites. Results indicate the model does a reasonable job of simulating the energy balance of cities.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Urban Parameterization for a Global Climate Model. Part I: Formulation and Evaluation for Two Cities

Oleson

Bonan

Feddema

et al. 2008

Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology

251

210

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Land-use changes are currently taking place at an unprecedented scale and contribute significantly to changing the local and regional climates. Previous studies have even shown that changes in surface landuse may have a significantly larger impact on climate than anthropogenic greenhouse gases (Pielke et al, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the impact of urbanisation on regional climate in the Greater London Area

Grawe

Thompson

Salmond

et al. 2012

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Urban areas have well-documented effects on climate, such as the urban heat island (UHI) effect, reduction of wind speeds, enhanced turbulence and boundary layer heights, and changes in cloud cover and precipitation. The aim of this study is to quantify the impact of the urban area of London on local and regional climate. This is achieved through the coupling of the non-hydrostatic mesoscale model METRAS with the sophisticated urban canopy scheme BEP. The model is configured for case studies of the London region, for typical UHI conditions, and the model results are evaluated using data from meteorological monitoring sites. This study develops a methodology to quantify the regional impact of urbanisation from numerical model results. The urban area, in its current form, is found to affect near surface temperature, the diurnal temperature range, the UHI, and the near surface wind speed and direction. For the selected cases, peak UHI intensities of up to 2.5 K are found during night time hours, with the timing and magnitude of the peak showing good agreement with previous experimental studies for London. The timing of the UHI peak intensity for the current urban land cover for London shows a good agreement with the results of measurements. A significant reduction in wind speed over the urban area was also simulated during both daytime and night time, due to the higher roughness of the city compared to the rural domain. The effect is shown to have a regional character, with both urban and surrounding rural areas demonstrating a significant impact. Thus, the UHI can not only be understood when focussing on local data, but the interaction with the surrounding needs to be considered.

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“…LULC composition and change has already been linked to water quality declines (Foley et al, 2005), climate change at regional and global scales (Bonan, 1997, Lawrence & Chase, 2010Pielke et al, 1999Pielke et al, , 2002Pitman et al, 2011), carbon dioxide emissions (Houghton & Hackler, 2001), habitat loss (Seabloom, Dobson, & Stoms, 2002;Soule, 2001), species extinction (Davies et al, 2006), and declining air quality (Romero, Ihl, Rivera, Zalazar, & Azocar, 1999;Ross et al, 2006 between policy decisions, regulatory actions, and land use (Hostert et al, 2011;Lunetta, Knight, Ediriwickrema, Lyon, & Worthy, 2006). Continuous LULCC monitoring allows researchers to draw connections between land change and variables such as carbon storage, watershed protection, and other ecosystem services -information essential for the management of natural and anthropogenic resources.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent land-use/land-cover change in the Central California Valley

Soulard

Wilson

2013

Journal of Land Use Science

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Open access to Landsat satellite data has enabled annual analyses of modern land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) for the Central California Valley ecoregion between 2005 and 2010. Our annual LULCC estimates capture landscape-level responses to water policy changes, climate, and economic instability. From 2005 to 2010, agriculture in the region fluctuated along with regulatory-driven changes in water allocation as well as persistent drought conditions. Grasslands and shrublands declined, while developed lands increased in former agricultural and grassland/shrublands. Development rates stagnated in 2007, coinciding with the onset of the historic foreclosure crisis in California and the global economic downturn. We utilized annual LULCC estimates to generate interval-based LULCC estimates (2000-2005 and 2005-2010) and extend existing 27 year interval-based land change monitoring through 2010. Resulting change data provides insights into the drivers of landscape change in the Central California Valley ecoregion and represents the first, continuous, 37 year mapping effort of its kind.

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The influence of land-use change and landscape dynamics on the climate system: relevance to climate-change policy beyond the radiative effect of greenhouse gases

Cited by 692 publications

References 20 publications

An Urban Parameterization for a Global Climate Model. Part I: Formulation and Evaluation for Two Cities

An Urban Parameterization for a Global Climate Model. Part I: Formulation and Evaluation for Two Cities

Modelling the impact of urbanisation on regional climate in the Greater London Area

Recent land-use/land-cover change in the Central California Valley

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