Articles | Volume 17, issue 8
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-4989-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-4989-2017
Research article
 | 
18 Apr 2017
Research article |  | 18 Apr 2017

Quantifying the contribution of land use change to surface temperature in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River

Xueqian Wang, Weidong Guo, Bo Qiu, Ye Liu, Jianning Sun, and Aijun Ding

Abstract. Anthropogenic land use has a significant impact on climate change. Located in the typical East Asian monsoon region, the land–atmosphere interaction in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River is even more complicated due to intensive human activities and different types of land use in this region. To better understand these effects on microclimate change, we compare differences in land surface temperature (Ts) for three land types around Nanjing from March to August, 2013, and then quantify the contribution of land surface factors to these differences (ΔTs) by considering the effects of surface albedo, roughness length, and evaporation. The atmospheric background contribution to ΔTs is also considered based on differences in air temperature (ΔTa). It is found that the cropland cooling effect decreases Ts by 1.76° and the urban heat island effect increases Ts by 1.25°. They have opposite impacts but are both significant in this region. Various changes in surface factors affect radiation and energy distribution and eventually modify Ts. It is the evaporative cooling effect that plays the most important role in this region and accounts for 1.40° of the crop cooling and 2.29° of the urban warming. Moreover, the background atmospheric circulation is also an indispensable part in land–atmosphere feedback induced by land use change and reinforces both these effects.

Download
Short summary
Land use or cover change is a fundamental anthropogenic forcing for climate change. Based on field observations, we quantified the contributions of different factors to surface temperature change and deepened the understanding of its mechanisms. We found evaporative cooling plays the most important role in the temperature change, while radiative forcing, which is traditionally emphasized, is not significant. This study provided firsthand evidence to verify the model results in IPCC AR5.
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint