The climatic effects of LUCC have been a focus of current researches on global climate change. The objective of this study is to investigate climatic effects of grassland degradation in Northwest China. Based on the stimulation of the conversion from grassland to other land use types during the next 30 years, the potential effects of grassland degradation on regional climate in the overgrazing area of Northwest China from 2010 to 2040 have been explored with Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF). The analysis results show that grassland will mainly convert into barren land, croplands, and urban land, which accounts for 42%, 48%, and 10% of the total converted grassland area, respectively. The simulation results indicate that the WRF model is appropriate for the simulation of the impact of grassland degradation on climate change. The grassland degradation during the next 30 years will result in the decrease of latent heat flux, which will further lead to the increase of temperature in summer, with an increment of 0.4–1.2°C, and the decrease of temperature in winter, with a decrement of 0.2°C. In addition, grassland degradation will cause the decrease of precipitation in both summer and winter, with a decrement of 4–20？mm. 1. Introduction The influence of human activities on the climate system has become the focus of the academic community at home and abroad in the context of global warming since the 20th century [1]. The fourth assessment report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR4) indicated that the human activities are an important influencing factor of climate change, accounting for 90% of global warming [2, 3]. Some previous researches have showed that the human-induced land use/land cover change (LUCC) was one of the major factors, which influence the regional climate [4]. The LUCC influences the climate change mainly through changing the underlying surface properties such as the surface reflectivity, roughness, soil moisture, leaf area, and vegetation coverage [5, 6]. The effects of LUCC on the biogeophysical processes vary from region to region, which are closely related with the land-atmosphere interaction, regional surface climate, environmental background and vegetation, and so forth, [7, 8]. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the effects of LUCC on regional climate for adapting to climate change. Grassland as one of the most widespread land use type covers about 40% of the total land area of China [9, 10]. The grasslands provide various ecosystem services such as the provision of the forage, milk, and
References
[1]
X. Deng, C. Zhao, and H. Yan, “Systematic modeling of impacts of land use and land cover changes on regional climate: a review,” Advances in Meteorology, vol. 2013, Article ID 317678, 10 pages, 2013.
[2]
M. Jin and S. Liang, “An improved land surface emissivity parameter for land surface models using global remote sensing observations,” Journal of Climate, vol. 19, no. 12, pp. 2867–2881, 2006.
[3]
S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning et al., Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, Cambridge, UK, 2007.
[4]
M. Cai and E. Kalnay, “Impact of land-use change on climate: commentary,” Nature, vol. 427, no. 6971, p. 214, 2004.
[5]
X. Gao, Y. Luo, W. Lin, Z. Zhao, and F. Giorgi, “Simulation of effects of land use change on climate in China by a regional climate model,” Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 583–592, 2003.
[6]
J. J. Feddema, K. W. Oleson, G. B. Bonan et al., “Atmospheric science: the importance of land-cover change in simulating future climates,” Science, vol. 310, no. 5754, pp. 1674–1678, 2005.
[7]
P. Sellers, W. Shut, and J. Dorman, “Calibration of the simplified simple biosphere model (SSiB) for Amazonian pasture and forest sites using LBA data,” Acta Amazonian, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 729–759, 1989.
[8]
J. Jin and L. Wen, “Evaluation of snowmelt simulation in the weather research and forecasting model,” Journal of Geophysical Research, vol. 117, 2012.
[9]
T. Akiyama and K. Kawamura, “Grassland degradation in China Grassland degradation in China: methods of monitoring, management and restoration,” Japanese Society of Grassland Science, vol. 53, pp. 1–17, 2007.
[10]
J. Jin, S. Lu, S. Li, and N. L. Miller, “Impact of land use change on the local climate over the Tibetan Plateau,” Advances in Meteorology, vol. 2010, Article ID 837480, 6 pages, 2010.
[11]
J. Fan, H. Zhong, W. Harris et al., “Carbon storage in the grasslands of China based on field measurements of above- and below-ground biomass,” Climatic Change, vol. 86, no. 3-4, pp. 375–396, 2008.
[12]
F. Barthold, M. Wiesmeier, L. Breuer, H. Frede, J. Wua, and F. Blank, “Land use and climate control the spatial distribution of soil types in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia,” Journal of Arid Environments, vol. 88, pp. 194–205, 2012.
[13]
G. Xu, M. Kang, and Y. Jiang, “Adaptation to the policy-oriented livelihood change in Xilingol grassland, Northern China,” Procedia Environmental Sciences, vol. 13, pp. 1668–1683, 2012.
[14]
X. Deng, J. Huang, Q. Huang, S. Rozelle, and J. Gibson, “Do roads lead to grassland degradation or restoration? A case study in Inner Mongolia, China,” Environment and Development Economics, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 751–773, 2011.
[15]
J. Charney, W. J. Quirk, S.-H. Chow, and J. Kornfield, “A comparative study of the effects of albedo change on drought in semi-arid region,” Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, vol. 34, no. 9, pp. 1366–1385, 1977.
[16]
Y. Xue, “The impact of desertification in the Mongolian and the Inner Mongolian grassland on the regional climate,” Journal of Climate, vol. 9, no. 9, pp. 2173–2189, 1996.
[17]
C. Fu, H. Wei, and W. Zheng, “Sensitivity test of surface coverage types of mainland China in mesoscale model,” in Global Change and the Environment in Our Country in the Future, Meteorological Press, Beijing, China, 1996, (Chinese).
[18]
J. Zhang, W. Dong, and C. Fu, “Impact of land surface degradation in northern China and southern Mongolia on regional climate,” Chinese Science Bulletin, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 75–81, 2005.
[19]
Y. Liu and S. Lv, “Numerical simulation of the impact of the grassland desertification on local climate in the Source Region of Three Rivers,” Journal of Arid Land Resources and Environment, vol. 6, no. 21, pp. 131–135, 2007 (Chinese).
[20]
Y. Xue and J. Shukla, “The influence of land surface properties on Sahel climate. Part I: desertification,” Journal of Climate, vol. 6, no. 12, pp. 2232–2245, 1993.
[21]
B. Fu, L. Wei, and W. Zhen, Sensitivity Test of Mesoscale Model to Surface Cover Type of the Chinese Mainland, China Meteorological Press, Beijing, China, 1996.
[22]
H. Mao, X. Yan, Z. Xiong, and H. Tian, “Modeled impact of irrigation on regional climate in India,” Acta Ecologica Sinica, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 1038–1045, 2011 (Chinese).
[23]
J. Jin, M. L. Miller, and N. Schlegel, “Sensitivity study of four land surface schemes in the WRF model,” Advances in Meteorology, vol. 2010, Article ID 167436, 11 pages, 2010.
[24]
M. Wang, X. Zhang, and X. Yan, “Modeling the climatic effects of urbanization in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei metropolitan area,” Theoretical and Applied Climatology, p. 9, 2012 (Chinese).
[25]
P. Caldwell, H.-N. S. Chin, D. C. Bader, and G. Bala, “Evaluation of a WRF dynamical downscaling simulation over California,” Climatic Change, vol. 95, no. 3-4, pp. 499–521, 2009.
[26]
C. V. Srinivas, D. Hariprasad, D. V. Bhaskar Rao, Y. Anjaneyulu, R. Baskaran, and B. Venkatraman, “Simulation of the Indian summer monsoon regional climate using advanced research WRF model,” International Journal of Climatology, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 1195–1210, 2013.
[27]
K. Taylor, R. Stouffer, and G. Meehl, “An overview of CMIP5 and the experiment design,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol. 93, no. 4, pp. 485–498, 2012.
[28]
M. Mohan and S. Bhati, “Analysis of WRF model performance over subtropical region of Delhi, India,” Advances in Meteorology, vol. 2011, Article ID 621235, 13 pages, 2011.
[29]
S.-Y. Hong and H.-L. Pan, “Nonlocal boundary layer vertical diffusion in a medium-range forecast model,” Monthly Weather Review, vol. 124, no. 10, pp. 2322–2339, 1996.
[30]
G. A. Grell and D. Dévényi, “A generalized approach to parameterizing convection combining ensemble and data assimilation techniques,” Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 29, no. 14, pp. 38–1, 2002.
[31]
F. Wu, X. Deng, F. Yin, and Y. Yuan, “Projected changes of grassland productivity along the representative concentration pathways during 2010–2050 in China,” Advances in Meteorology, vol. 2013, Article ID 812723, 9 pages, 2013.
[32]
J. L. Schedlbauer, S. F. Oberbauer, G. Starr, and K. L. Jimenez, “Controls on sensible heat and latent energy fluxes from a short-hydroperiod Florida Everglades marsh,” Journal of Hydrology, vol. 411, no. 3-4, pp. 331–341, 2011.
[33]
L. Lian and J. Shu, “Simulation of effects of grassland degradation on regional climate over sanjiangyuan region in Qinghai-Tibet plateau,” Acta Meteorologica Sinica, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 350–362, 2009.
[34]
M. V. K. Sivakumar, “Interactions between climate and desertification,” Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, vol. 142, no. 2–4, pp. 143–155, 2007.
