Showing papers by "Gordon B. Bonan published in 1997"

Effects of Land Use on the Climate of the United States

Abstract: Land use practices have replaced much of the natural needleleaf evergreen, broadleaf deciduous, and mixed forests of the Eastern United States with crops. To a lesser extent, the natural grasslands in the Central United States have also been replaced with crops. Simulations with a land surface process model coupled to an atmospheric general circulation model show that the climate of the United States with modern vegetation is significantly different from that with natural vegetation. Three important climate signals caused by modern vegetation are: (1) 1 °C cooling over the Eastern United States and 1 °C warming over the Western United States in spring; (2) summer cooling of up to 2 °C over a wide region of the Central United States; and (3) moistening of the near-surface atmosphere by 0.5 to 1.5 g kg-1over much of the United States in spring and summer. Although individual months show large, statistically significant differences in precipitation due to land-use practices, these differences average out over the course of the 3-month seasons. These changes in surface temperature and moisture extend well into the atmosphere, up to 500 mb, and affect the boundary layer and atmospheric circulation. The altered climate is due to reduced surface roughness, reduced leaf and stem area index, reduced stomatal resistance, and increased surface albedo with modern vegetation compared to natural vegetation. The climate change caused by land use practices is comparable to other well known anthropogenic climate forcings. For example, it would take 100 to 175 years at the current, observed rate of summer warming over the United States to offset the cooling from deforestation. The summer sulfate aerosol forcing completely offsets the greenhouse forcing over the Eastern United States. Similarly, the climatic effect of North American deforestation, with extensive summer cooling, further offsets the greenhouse forcing.

Feedbacks between climate and surface water in northern Africa during the middle Holocene

Abstract: Observations indicate that the area of lakes and wetlands in northern Africa was considerably greater during the middle Holocene than at present. Simulations are designed to examine whether expanded surface waters may have had a significant impact on the strength of the summer monsoon of northern Africa. Three experiments with the National Center for Atmospheric Research community climate model (NCAR CCM3) are analyzed, a modern and two middle Holocene (6000 years before present) simulations, one with and one without prescribed expanded surface water. There is a significant increase in the strength of the summer monsoon in the middle Holocene simulation due to the enhanced seasonal insolation cycle. The addition of surface waters result in a June, July, and August mean increase in the net surface radiation (5%), an increase in the latent heat flux (30%), a decrease in the sensible heat flux (10%), and an increase in the near-surface specific humidity (>5%) compared to the middle Holocene simulation without surface water changes. The changes in these simulated climate variables are comparable in scale to changes due to orbital forcing alone. The expanded surface waters result in a cooling of the atmosphere and anticyclonic flow over the large water bodies in summer relative to the simulation without surface water changes. The combination of increased atmospheric moisture and altered circulation results in significant changes to the precipitation distribution in northern Africa including a small increase in the zonal mean July precipitation to the north of the lakes and a decrease to the south. The geographic distribution of the precipitation with surface water changes is qualitatively in better agreement with observations than the distribution with orbital forcing alone but still does not fully match the expansion implied by observations nor the expansion required to produce the simulated middle Holocene surface waters used in this study. The results of this study suggest that surface waters were an important factor in the climate of northern Africa during the middle and early Holocene and that they must be included for accurate simulation of this climate.

Comparison of the NCAR LSM1 land surface model with BOREAS aspen and jack pine tower fluxes

Abstract: Tower fluxes measured at the Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study southern study area old aspen (SSA-OA), southern study area old jack pine (SSA-OJP), and northern study area old jack pine (NSA-OJP) sites during the three 1994 intensive field campaigns (IFCs) (May 24 to June 16 (IFC-1), July 19 to August 10 (IFC-2), and August 30 to September 19 (IFC-3)) were compared to fluxes simulated by a land surface model for the same period. Comparisons were limited to the average diurnal cycle for these periods to mitigate large day-to-day variability in the observations and problems with missing data. For consistency with the global implementation of the model, vegetation and soil parameters were not set to site-specific values but rather were the generic needleleaf evergreen and broadleaf deciduous vegetation and the generic sandy and loamy soil used in the global model. Despite the use of generic vegetation and soil, the model reasonably simulated the diurnal cycle of sensible heat, latent heat, net radiation, and CO2 fluxes for the SSA-OJP and SSA-OA sites. The main errors were that the model did not reproduce the midday reduction in latent heat seen at the SSA-OJP site during IFC-1 and IFC-2 and had less photosynthetic CO2 uptake than observed at the SSA-OA site. Differences in vegetation structure and physiology between the two sites were important to accurately simulate the fluxes. The needleleaf evergreen vegetation resulted in higher net radiation and a higher Bowen ratio than the broadleaf deciduous vegetation. Soil differences were less important. The NSA-OJP site was not so well simulated: midday latent heat flux was overestimated, and photosynthetic CO2 uptake was underestimated during each IFC. The only difference in the simulated southern and northern jack pine sites was in their atmospheric forcings; vegetation structure and soil types were the same. These results suggest the model is able to reproduce variability between vegetation types but not within vegetation types.

Comparison of two complex land surface schemes coupled to the National Center for Atmospheric Research general circulation model

Abstract: Two climate simulations with the National Center for Atmospheric Research general circulation model (version CCM2) coupled either to the Biosphere Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS) or to Sechiba land surface scheme are compared. Both parameterizations of surface-atmosphere exchanges may be considered as complex but represent the soil hydrology and the role of vegetation in very different ways. The global impact of the change in land surface scheme on the simulated climate appears to be small. Changes are smaller than those obtained when comparing either one of these schemes to the fixed hydrology used in the standard CCM2. Nevertheless, at the regional scale, changing the land-surface scheme can have a large impact on the local climate. As one example, wre detail how circulation patterns are modified above the Tibetan plateau during the monsoon season. Elsewhere, mainly over land, changes can also be important. In the tropics, during the dry season, Sechiba produces warmer surface temperatures than does BATS. This warming arises from differences in the soil hydrology, both storage capacity and the dynamics of soil water transport. Over the Tundra biotype, the formulation of the transpiration induces significant differences in the energy balance.