Land Cover Conversion and Surface Climate
Abstract
One of the major perturbations to the earth system is conversion of land to satisfy human needs for food, fiber, and settlements. The resulting changes in vegetation potentially influence exchanges of water, energy, and momentum between the land surface and atmosphere. We report on several global-scale model experiments examining the effects of past and future land cover conversion on surface climate. Future changes in vegetation, occurring predominantly in the tropics, are likely to have a warming effect outside the bounds of decadal-scale interannual variability. In contrast, land cover change over the past few centuries has largely had a cooling effect. At the regional-scale, forcing from land cover conversion depends on the type of conversion, illustrated with an example from southern Bolivia. Land cover conversion is one of several aspects of vegetation dynamics that interact with climate, including vegetation response to climate variability, shifts in vegetation type from climate change, and enhanced growth from increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and nitrogen.
- Publication:
-
EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly
- Pub Date:
- April 2003
- Bibcode:
- 2003EAEJA.....2945D