Background
We know Land Cover Change (LCC) affects aspects of climate. The LCC effects on climate include direct alterations in surface solar and longwave radiation and in atmospheric turbulence which result in changes in the fluxes of momentum, heat, water vapor, and carbon dioxide as well as other trace gases and both inorganic and biogenic aerosols including dust between vegetation, soils, and the atmosphere. A thorough review of the background to this issue is provided by Pielke et al. (2011).
If you are interested in the history and/or scale of LCC, we suggest:
The impacts of LCC on global and regional scale are complex and there is a significant literature. A recent assessment of this area, in the context of how land surface processes are modelled and how LCC affects global and regional climate was written by Pitman and de Noblet-Ducoudré (2011).
If you are interested in the history and/or scale of LCC, we suggest:
- Williams M. Forests In: Turner BL, Clark RW, Kates RW, Richards JF, Mathews JT, Meyer WB, eds. The Earth as Transformed by Human Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1990, 179–201.
- Meyer WB, Turner BL, II. Changes in Land Use and Land Cover: A Global Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press; 1994.
- Ramankutty N, Foley JA. Estimating historical changes in global land cover: Croplands from 1700 to 1992. Global Biogeochem Cycles 1999, 13:997–1027. doi:10.1029/1999GB900046.
- Klein Goldewijk K. Estimating global land use change over the past 300 years: the HYDE database. Global Biogeochem Cycles 2001, 15:417–434. doi:10.1029/2000GB001290.
- Hurtt GC, Frolking S, Fearon MG, Moore III B, Shevliakova E, Malyshev S, Pacala S, Houghton RA. The underpinnings of land-use history: three centuries of global gridded land-use transitions, wood harvest activity, and resulting secondary lands. Global Change Biol 2006, 12:1–22. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2486.2006.
- Pongratz J, Reick C, Raddatz T, ClaussenM. A reconstruction of global agricultural areas and land cover for the last millennium. Global Biogeochem Cycles, 2008, 22:GB3018. doi:10.129/2007GB003153.
The impacts of LCC on global and regional scale are complex and there is a significant literature. A recent assessment of this area, in the context of how land surface processes are modelled and how LCC affects global and regional climate was written by Pitman and de Noblet-Ducoudré (2011).
- Pitman A.J. and N. de Noblet-Ducoudré, 2011, Human effects on climate through land-use induced land cover change, Chapter 4 of The Future Of The World’s Climate, edited by A. Henderson-Sellers and K. McGuffie pp.77-95, Elsevier Amsterdam, ISBN: 978-0-12-386917-3, 650 pp.
