From Roger Pielke Sr.
New Paper “Impacts Of Land Use Land Cover Change On Climate And Future Research Priorities” By Mahmood Et Al 2009
We have a new multi-authored paper that has been accepted. This paper illustrates the breadth and diversity of scientists who have concluded that land use/land cover change is a first order climate forcing.
The paper is
Mahmood, R., R.A. Pielke Sr., K.G. Hubbard, D. Niyogi, G. Bonan, P. Lawrence, B. Baker, R. McNider, C. McAlpine, A. Etter, S. Gameda, B. Qian, A. Carleton, A. Beltran-Przekurat, T. Chase, A.I. Quintanar, J.O. Adegoke, S. Vezhapparambu, G. Conner, S. Asefi, E. Sertel, D.R. Legates, Y. Wu, R. Hale, O.W. Frauenfeld, A. Watts, M. Shepherd, C. Mitra, V.G. Anantharaj, S. Fall,R. Lund, A. Nordfelt, P. Blanken, J. Du, H.-I. Chang, R. Leeper, U.S. Nair, S. Dobler, R. Deo, and J. Syktus,
2009: Impacts of land use land cover change on climate and future research priorities (PDF). Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., accepted.
The paper starts with the text
“Human activities have modified the environment for thousands of years. Significant population increase, migration, and accelerated socio-economic activities have intensified these environmental changes over the last several centuries. The climate impacts of these changes have been found in local, regional, and global trends in modern atmospheric temperature records and other relevant climatic indicators.”
In our conclusions, we write
“It is the regional responses, not a global average, that produce drought, floods and other societally important climate impacts.”
as well as make the following recommendations
“we recommend, as a start, to assess three new climate metrics:
1. The magnitude of the spatial redistribution of land surface latent and sensible heating (e.g., see Chase et al. 2000; Pielke et al. 2002). The change in these fluxes into the atmosphere will result in the alteration of a wide variety of climate variables including the locations of major weather features. For example, Takata et al. (2009) demonstrated the major effect of land use change during the period 1700-1850 on the Asian monsoon. As land cover change accelerated after 1850 and continues into the future, LULCC promises to continue to alter the surface pattern of sensible and latent heat input to the atmosphere.
2. The magnitude of the spatial redistribution of precipitation and moisture convergence (e.g., Pielke and Chase 2003). In response to LULCC, the boundaries of regions of wet and dry climates can change, thereby affecting the likelihood for floods and drought. This redistribution can occur not only from the alterations in the patterns of surface sensible and latent heat, but also due to changes in surface albedo and aerodynamic roughness (e.g., see Pitman et al. 2004; Nair et al. 2007).
3. The normalized gradient of regional radiative heating changes. Since it is the horizontal gradient of layer-averaged temperatures that force wind circulations, the alteration in these temperatures from any human climate forcing will necessarily alter these circulations. In the evaluation of the human climate effect from aerosols, for example, Matsui and Pielke (2006) found that, in terms of the gradient of atmospheric radiative heating, the role of human inputs was 60 times greater than the role of the human increase in the well-mixed greenhouse gases. Thus, this aerosol effect has a much more significant role on the climate than is inferred when using global average metrics. We anticipate a similar large effect from LULCC. Feddema et al. (2005), for example, have shown that global averages mask the impacts on regional temperature and precipitation changes. The above climate metrics can be monitored using observed data within model calculations such as completed by Matsui and Pielke (2006) for aerosols, as well as by using reanalyses products, such as performed by Chase et al (2000) with respect to the spatial pattern of lower tropospheric heating and cooling. They should also be calculated as part of future IPCC and other climate assessment multi-decadal climate model simulations.”
We also write
“With respect to surface air temperatures, for example, there needs to be an improved quantification of the biases and uncertainties in multi-decadal temperature trends, which remain inadequately evaluated in assessment reports such as from the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP 2006). We also recommend that independent committees (perhaps sponsored by the National Science Foundation) conduct these assessments.”
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Personal note: I am in the list of authors. I had an equal role with the other co-authors, resulting in the first climate science publication for which I am listed as an author. Note the sections in the PDF speaking of the issues with USHCN. – Anthony
Les Francis
You describe Kalimantan and Sumatera, I presume?
Congratulations Anthony. With this publication, do you think there will be more awareness of your blog in the wider community, scientific or not? I really hope so, there are so many people who need to understand where our esteemed “leaders” are taking us. Seems to me we’re heading straight down the c@pper, with Brown in the lead.
Congratulations, Anthony. The surface stations project and WattsUpWithThat have provided a most imaginative and inventive beginning for a clearer understanding of our world and its climate/weather. I look forward to future papers and equally magnificent projects. Deep gratitude to all those who assisted you and to those professionals who recognized how greatly science has been/is being advanced by your contributions (and personality).
Julien @ur momisugly (01:28:01) : It seems to me there is not much more evaporation from grass than from concrete as both surfaces are very dry.
Actually, there is an enormous difference between turfgrass and cement. Not the least being that one of them is alive! Turfgrasses have a process called respiration that releases water and CO2 as the plant metabolizes carbohydrates. At night, as the air cools, this leads to a veritable cloud layer over the turf from the released water vapour. That causes a localized cooling effect. This is why fungus is such a problem with turfgrass management. There is a “micro climate” immediately above the turf that can be an ideal incubator for many nasty types of fungus that thrive is cool, moist conditions. This is also why most golf course superintendents are alcoholics. (I am recovering nicely) 8-[)
Let us not forget the governments’ role in changing the natural landscape – large swaths of our natural prairies were covered with trees as part of the governments terms of settlement, commonly known as “tree claims”. And heaven knows the Army Corp of Engineers hasn’t modified anything!
Pythium foliar blight and Anthracnose basal rot are words that will strike terror in the hearts of golf course superintendents everywhere. (I am one. Retired when my liver gave out)
Mike D. (01:29:07) :
Note to Nasif Nahle (22:08:29):
I am conscious of that, Mike. That’s the reason I didn’t write “theory”, but “hypothesis” and “hypothetical”. For example here:
“Hypothetically, the climax community is the final autoperpetuable stage of…”
And here:
“in such form that it doesn’t finish like the hypothetical climate climax…”
Anyway, the concept of climax community is valid, though we have to consider that it is not auto-perpetuable.
On the other hand, climax communities have been changing with and without humans, so changes are mainly natural.
FINAL REMARKS. As documented in this essay, we conclude that the finding of the National Research Council report (2005) that LULCC represents a first-order human climate forcing is a robust statement. LULCC effects must be assessed in detail as part of all future climate change assessments, including the forthcoming IPCC 5th Assessment, in order for them to be scientifically complete….It is the regional responses, not a global average, that produce drought, floods and other societally important climate impacts
So, we, humans ( not all of course-THEY are supposed to be the exception-), are the bad guys.
This is a study to support the eventual application of Malthusian policies
Big SOL will show you who is the master of climate.
Wrong! Wrong! So totally wrong!
How can we impose the de-industrialization of the masses if global warming is tied to land-use, deforestation, water evaporation changes?
Are these not conditions that can be resolved without massive alterations to lifestyles, independence and individual liberties?
No, we must suppress this research. It must be CO2! It HAS to be CO2!
No more blasphemy. Do not anger the Eco God. He will submit us to his wrath and scorn.
Praise Eco-Allah. Praise Eco-Allah.
Death to the Denier Infidels!
Thank you for explainations. I see two ways to increase the temperature of a system receiving radiative energy (sun).
1) Change the radiative sum. Decrease the amount of energy sent back by the system…greenhouse gas for exemple.
2) Change the way the system stores it’s energy…asphalt stores energy as heat. Planted areas store energy as biomass and changes liquid water->vapor. Temperature difference between grass and asphalt can reach 25 degrees C in summer.
It seems to me AGW people almost never talk about 2).
I have to add that the environmentalists have been struggling hard against the theory of ecological succession and the concept of community climax because these natural observed phenomena do not fit into their anti-homo claims. This environmentalist struggle is reflected very well in Wikipedia.
The rapid population increase from about a billion persons in 1800 to six billion at present (I think the UN global numbers are a bit inflated), coincided with large agricultural expansion. This includes about 4,000,000 sq miles of harvested cropland, 6,000,000 square miles of active pasture and rangeland, and 2,500,000 of active forestry. This is about 12.5 million square miles, or 25% of the dry land (50 million square miles) on Earth. Lots of local microclimate changes, which should have had a detectable cumulative effect on global climate measurements.
I submit to you that most of the agricultural land use changes have already occured, and the future decades will be ones where increasing productivity of primary production results in a slow retraction of these land areas. Therefore future climate changes due to these processes are limited to how the introduction of GM crops into various places effects things like nitrogen and methane.
In terms of urban heat islands, at present about 400,000 square miles of the land area is in cities, and another 600,000 square miles in exurban and rural settlement, and the global rural road network. The actual area paved over is about 250,000 square miles (the majority of land in urban areas is covered with vegetation).
With a global population likely to level off at 8 billion persons, with 6.4 billion or 80 percent living in urban areas, and the demand for urban land increasing, the 400,000 footprint will likely expand to 800,000 square miles (1.6% of the dry land surface of the Earth).
If I was you guys (I am a human geographer), I would study the impact of heat island creation in places like South Asia and East Asia.
Since most of future urban area creation will be more suburban like than dense core central city, identifying the difference in heat island effects in downtowns, clustered employment centers, and large airports, in contrast with suburbs well planted with trees and other vegetation, will be quite useful.
Get ahead of what will become a public policy land use debate
Just another human’s crime before mother Nature, “we have to do something about”, much like AGW, ozon holes and so on.
Andre (08:43:56) :
Just another human’s crime before mother Nature, “we have to do something about”, much like AGW, ozon holes and so on.
It is very easy, there are several euthanasia methods for you to use, in case you need to sincerely cooperate in population reduction. If you take that decision there will be one less polluting being damaging our environment. Don’t you think so?
Germany is not only the birthplace of the science of ecology and the site of Green politics’ rise to prominence; it has also been home to a peculiar synthesis of naturalism and nationalism forged under the influence of the Romantic tradition’s anti-Enlightenment irrationalism. Two nineteenth century figures exemplify this ominous conjunction: Ernst Moritz Arndt and Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl.
http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/peter.html
Hmmm, is that an honorary degree I see on the horizon?
“Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” Albert Einstein
Congrats, Doc Watts! May your value always exceed your success.
Keep up the good work……
…… well, you didn’t think you were going to lay back on laurels, did you?
Congrats Anthony, I hope this is the start of a long record of scientific contributions. I don’t expect the Team will be sending any invites to ice cream socials any time soon, but their basis for ad hom snobbery is now eroded.
“Global warming, Ozone depletion, the loss of living species, deforestation-they all have a common cause: the new relationship between human civilization and the earth’s natural balance”
Al Gore’s “Earth in the balance”
Well I understand most of the words with four letters or less. How can so many authors agree on what words to use in a paper.
I gather the bottom line is that humans and other alien creatures are bad for gaia.
George
Darn it Anthony, now you’ve done it. Just when I was beginning to trust you. Credibility is usually not associated with being peer-reviewed in climate science. However, keep up the excellent work and I’ll cut you some slack. ;~P
A masterpiece.
The beauty of this is, within this paper is a high level work plan.
Now, to make the research happen.
RE: “A little smoke from southern california has the same impact as a snow-covered glacier over half of Europe”
During last year’s fire outbreak (not only in Southern but in all of CA) we experienced a mini nuclear winter. The plumes at one point covered portions of other nearby states, at one point, stretching nearly to Fargo ND. It was a bit frightening.
OT, but we’re coming up on 41 consecutive spotless days.
Pearland Aggie (12:14:42) :
OT, but we’re coming up on 41 consecutive spotless days.
Watts effect needed or we’ll have to begin building our igloos!!