From quantifying historical LULCC impacts to optimizing land management for climate mitigation: Insights from climate modelling

Abstract:

Human activities have profoundly transformed the land surface through land use/land cover change (LULCC). The consequence of this transformation is twofold: First, the conversion from natural to anthropogenic systems exert a direct forcing on climate (through both biogeochemical and biogeophysical processes); Second the transformed ecosystems may modify land-atmosphere feedback mechanisms thus modulating the response to climate change or to specific weather events. The first point will be illustrated by reviewing recent modelling results, including LUCID and CMIP5 model intercomparisons, to shed some light on the relative importance of LULCC versus other climate forcings. Given the importance of LULCC impacts at the regional scale, some recent efforts to improve the representation of land processes in regional climate models [1] as well as a regional assessment of the impact of amazonian deforestation [2] will be presented. The second point will be discussed through two examples. First, the fact that LULCC may modulate certain modes of variability will be illustrated based on model experiments highlighting the regional interplay between ENSO variability and amazonian deforestation. Second, we will show that peak temperatures during heat waves can be strongly influenced locally by the type of land cover or land management practices. In particular no-till farming, by increasing surface albedo, can lead to a substantial attenuation of hot temperatures during heat waves, in part due to a more efficient radiative cooling effect during cloud-free conditions [3].

References:

[1] Davin, E.L. and S.I. Seneviratne (2012), Role of land surface processes and diffuse/direct radiation partitioning in simulating the European climate, Biogeosciences, 9, 1695-1707, doi:10.5194/bg-9-1695-2012.

[2] Lejeune, Q., E.L. Davin, B. Guillod and S.I. Seneviratne (2015), Influence of Amazonian deforestation on the future evolution of regional surface fluxes, circulation, surface temperature and precipitation, Clim. Dyn., doi:10.1007/s00382-014-2203-8.

[3] Davin, E.L., S.I. Seneviratne, P. Ciais, A. Olioso, and T. Wang (2014), Preferential cooling of hot extremes from cropland albedo management, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., doi:10.1073/pnas.1317323111.