Suosuo Li

Impact of Land Use Change on the Local Climate over the Tibetan Plateau

Observational data show that the remotely sensed leaf area index (LAI) has a significant downward trend over the east Tibetan Plateau (TP), while a warming trend is found in the same area. Further analysis indicates that this warming trend mainly results from the nighttime warming. The Single-Column Atmosphere Model (SCAM) version 3.1 developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research is used to investigate the role of land use change in the TP local climate system and isolate the contribution of land use change to the warming. Two sets of SCAM simulations were performed at the Xinghai station that is located near the center of the TP Sanjiang (three rivers) Nature Reserve where the downward LAI trend is largest. These simulations were forced with the high and low LAIs. The modeling results indicate that, when the LAI changes from high to low, the daytime temperature has a slight decrease, while the nighttime temperature increases significantly, which is consistent with the observations. The modeling results further show that the lower surface roughness length plays a significant role in affecting the nighttime temperature increase.

Evaluation of CMIP5 earth system models in reproducing leaf area index and vegetation cover over the Tibetan Plateau

The abilities of 12 earth system models (ESMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) to reproduce satellite-derived vegetation biological variables over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) were examined. The results show that most of the models tend to overestimate the observed leaf area index (LAI) and vegetation carbon above the ground, with the possible reasons being overestimation of photosynthesis and precipitation. The model simulations show a consistent increasing trend with observed LAI over most of the TP during the reference period of 1986–2005, while they fail to reproduce the downward trend around the headstream of the Yellow River shown in the observation due to their coarse resolutions. Three of the models: CCSM4, CESM1-BGC, and NorESM1-ME, which share the same vegetation model, show some common strengths and weaknesses in their simulations according to our analysis. The model ensemble indicates a reasonable spatial distribution but overestimated land coverage, with a significant decreasing trend (−1.48% per decade) for tree coverage and a slight increasing trend (0.58% per decade) for bare ground during the period 1950–2005. No significant sign of variation is found for grass. To quantify the relative performance of the models in representing the observed mean state, seasonal cycle, and interannual variability, a model ranking method was performed with respect to simulated LAI. INMCM4, bcc-csm-1.1m, MPI-ESM-LR, IPSL CM5A-LR, HadGEM2-ES, and CCSM4 were ranked as the best six models in reproducing vegetation dynamics among the 12 models.

Variations and trends of terrestrial NPP and its relation to climate change in the 10 CMIP5 models

Using global terrestrial ecosystem net primary productivity (NPP) data, we validated the simulated multi-model ensemble (MME) NPP, analyzed the spatial distribution of global NPP and explored the relationship between NPP and climate variations in historical scenarios of 10 CMIP5 models. The results show that the global spatial pattern of simulated terrestrial ecosystem NPP, is consistent with IGBP NPP, but the values have some differences and there is a huge uncertainty. Considering global climate change, near surface temperature is the major factor affecting the terrestrial ecosystem, followed by the precipitation. This means terrestrial ecosystem NPP is more closely related to near surface temperature than precipitation. Between 1976 and 2005, NPP shows an obvious increasing temporal trend, indicating the terrestrial ecosystem has had a positive response to climate change. MME NPP has increased 3.647PgC during historical period, which shows an increasing temporal trend of 3.9 gCm−2∙100 yr−2 in the past 150 years, also indicating that the terrestrial ecosystem has shown a positive response to climate change in past 150 years.