%0 Journal Article
%T Possible Influence of the Cultivated Land Reclamation on Surface Climate in India: A WRF Model Based Simulation
%A Yi Qu
%A Feng Wu
%A Haiming Yan
%A Bangrong Shu
%A Xiangzheng Deng
%J Advances in Meteorology
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/312716
%X Land use/cover change (LUCC) has become one of the most important factors for the global climate change. As one of the major types of LUCC, cultivated land reclamation also has impacts on regional climate change. Most of the previous studies focused on the correlation and simulation analysis of historical LUCC and climate change, with few explorations for the impacts of future LUCC on regional climate, especially impacts of the cultivated land reclamation. This study used the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to forecast the changes of energy flux and temperature based on the future cultivated land reclamation in India and then analyzed the impacts of cultivated land reclamation on climate change. The results show that cultivated land reclamation will lead to a large amount of land conversions, which will overall result in the increase in latent heat flux of regional surface as well as the decrease in sensible heat flux and further lead to changes of regional average temperature. Furthermore, the impact on climate change is seasonally different. The cultivated land reclamation mainly leads to a temperature decrease in the summer, while it leads to a temperature increase in the winter. 1. Introduction The land use/cover change (LUCC) is one of the most important human activities and one of the driving forces for the global climate change [1¨C5]. The LUCC can alter the properties of the land surface and subsequently influence the energy and material exchange between the biosphere and atmosphere as well as the biogeochemical process and consequently exert significant influence on the regional and even global climate [6¨C12]. The LUCC includes not only the change of land use patterns in the same land use type [13] but also the conversion among different land use types [14, 15], for example, the conversion of cultivated land to built-up land [16], deforestation, and reclamation of the wasteland [17]. As human society develops, especially since the industrial revolution, LUCC plays a more and more important role in the environment [18¨C20]. On the one hand, the demand of built-up land has continuously increased with the acceleration of the urbanization, and a lot of cultivated land has been occupied, which makes the existing cultivated land decrease greatly [21, 22]. On the other hand, the population growth and improvement of the living standard have put forward higher demand on the grain production [23]. People have to meet their need by making more intensive use of the existing cultivated land and meanwhile continuously reclaiming the forests [24],
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/amete/2013/312716/