%0 Journal Article
%T Impacts of Vegetation Change on the Regional Surface Climate: A Scenario-Based Analysis of Afforestation in Jiangxi Province, China
%A Enjun Ma
%A Anping Liu
%A Xing Li
%A Feng Wu
%A Jinyan Zhan
%J Advances in Meteorology
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/796163
%X The afforestation is one of the most noticeable human activities that affect the climate through influencing not only the carbon sink but also the thermal properties of the land surface. This research accessed the potential effects of artificial vegetation change on the regional climate in Jiangxi Province, China. Based on simulation with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, a comparative analysis was carried out on the future temperature and precipitation under four hypothetical vegetation cover scenarios. The simulation results indicated that the vegetation change would have significant effects on the regional climate. The simulated effects of annual average temperature showed a decreasing order: evergreen broadleaf > evergreen needleleaf > deciduous needleleaf > deciduous broadleaf, and the effects of annual average precipitation of the evergreen forests would be bigger than those of the deciduous forests. The deciduous forests play a positive role in decreasing the annual average temperature, while the evergreen forests promote the annual average temperature rise. Besides, the expansion of deciduous forests may result in severe drought in the summer in Jiangxi Province. These conclusions are of important policy implication to the future afforestation in Jiangxi Province, China, and other regions of the world. 1. Introduction The biogeochemical impacts of land use and land cover change (LUCC) on the climate through changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere have been greatly concerned and widely studied [1¨C5]. Impacts of LUCC on the regional and global climate can be divided into two major categories: biogeochemical and biogeophysical impacts [1, 6]. The biogeophysical processes driven by LUCC directly affect the physical properties of the land surface, which determine the absorption and emission of energy at the Earth¡¯s surface [2, 3]. Change of the land surface albedo can alter the absorption rate of solar radiation and consequently influence the energy availability [4, 5]. Characteristics of vegetation transpiration on the land surface greatly affect how the energy received by the land surface is partitioned into the latent and sensible heat fluxes [7]. The vegetation type affects the surface roughness and consequently influences the transfer of local momentum and heat [8, 9]. The vegetation increase/decrease exerted negative effects locally, and the effects were stronger in growth season than those in nongrowth season [10]. Recently, Jiangxi Province has many forests area and makes a lot of projects of afforestation, such as
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/amete/2013/796163/