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1. Assessing Global and Regional Effects of Reconstructed Land-Use and Land-Cover Change on Climate since 1950 Using a Coupled Land–Atmosphere–Ocean Model

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0108.1  

   Huang, Huilin ; Xue, Yongkang ; Chilukoti, Nagaraju ; Liu, Ye ; Chen, Gang ; Diallo, Ismaila ( October 2020 , Journal of Climate)

   Abstract Land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) is one of the most important forcings affecting climate in the past century. This study evaluates the global and regional LULCC impacts in 1950–2015 by employing an annually updated LULCC map in a coupled land–atmosphere–ocean model. The difference between LULCC and control experiments shows an overall land surface temperature (LST) increase by 0.48 K in the LULCC regions and a widespread LST decrease by 0.18 K outside the LULCC regions. A decomposed temperature metric (DTM) is applied to quantify the relative contribution of surface processes to temperature changes. Furthermore, while precipitation in the LULCC areas is reduced in agreement with declined evaporation, LULCC causes a southward displacement of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) with a narrowing by 0.5°, leading to a tripole anomalous precipitation pattern over the warm pool. The DTM shows that the temperature response in LULCC regions results from the competing effect between increased albedo (cooling) and reduced evaporation (warming). The reduced evaporation indicates less atmospheric latent heat release in convective processes and thus a drier and cooler troposphere, resulting in a reduction in surface cooling outside the LULCC regions. The southward shift of the ITCZ implies a northward cross-equatorial energy transportmore »anomaly in response to reduced latent/sensible heat of the atmosphere in the Northern Hemisphere, where LULCC is more intensive. Tropospheric cooling results in the equatorward shift of the upper-tropospheric westerly jet in both hemispheres, which, in turn, leads to an equatorward narrowing of the Hadley circulation and ITCZ.« less
2. Land Use and Land Cover Change Strongly Modulates Land‐Atmosphere Coupling and Warm‐Season Precipitation Over the Central United States in CESM2‐VR

   https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS001925  

   Devanand, Anjana ; Huang, Maoyi ; Lawrence, David M. ; Zarzycki, Colin M. ; Feng, Zhe ; Lawrence, Peter J. ; Qian, Yun ; Yang, Zhao ( September 2020 , Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems)
3. Land Use and Land Cover Shape River Water Quality at a Continental Caribbean Land-Ocean Interface

   https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2022.737920  

   Clark, Kasey E. ; Bravo, Viviana D. ; Giddings, Sarah N. ; Davis, Kristen A. ; Pawlak, Geno ; Torres, Mark A. ; Adelson, Anne E. ; César-Ávila, Carolina I. ; Boza, Ximena ; Collin, Rachel ( March 2022 , Frontiers in Water)

   Land use and land cover (LULC) can significantly alter river water, which can in turn have important impacts on downstream coastal ecosystems by delivering nutrients that promote marine eutrophication and hypoxia. Well-documented in temperate systems, less is known about the way land cover relates to water quality in low-lying coastal zones in the tropics. Here we evaluate the catchment LULC and the physical and chemical characteristics of six rivers that contribute flow into a seasonally hypoxic tropical bay in Bocas del Toro, Panama. From July 2019 to March 2020, we routinely surveyed eight physical and chemical characteristics (temperature, specific conductivity, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), nitrate and nitrite, ammonium, and phosphate). Our goals were to determine how these physical and chemical characteristics of the rivers reflect the LULC, to compare the water quality of the focal rivers to rivers across Panama, and to discuss the potential impacts of river discharge in the Bay. Overall, we found that the six focal rivers have significantly different river water characteristics that can be linked to catchment LULC and that water quality of rivers 10 s of kilometers apart could differ drastically. Two focal catchments dominated by pristine peat swamp vegetation in San Sanmore »Pond Sak, showed characteristics typical of blackwater rivers, with low pH, dissolved oxygen, and nutrients. The remaining four catchments were largely mountainous with >50% forest cover. In these rivers, variation in nutrient concentrations were associated with percent urbanization. Comparisons across Panamanian rivers covered in a national survey to our focal rivers shows that saltwater intrusions and low DO of coastal swamp rivers may result in their classification by a standardized water quality index as having slightly contaminated water quality, despite this being their natural state. Examination of deforestation over the last 20 years, show that changes were <10% in the focal catchments, were larger in the small mountainous catchments and suggest that in the past 20 years the physical and chemical characteristics of river water that contributes to Almirante Bay may have shifted slightly in response to these moderate land use changes. (See supplementary information for Spanish-language abstract).« less
4. The Effect of Land Albedo on the Climate of Land-dominated Planets in the TRAPPIST-1 System

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/abbe04  

   Rushby, Andrew J. ; Shields, Aomawa L. ; Wolf, Eric T. ; Laguë, Marysa ; Burgasser, Adam ( December 2020 , The Astrophysical Journal)
5. On the association between land system architecture and land surface temperatures: Evidence from a Desert Metropolis—Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2017.02.009  

   Li, Xiaoxiao ; Kamarianakis, Yiannis ; Ouyang, Yun ; Turner II, Billie L. ; Brazel, Anthony ( July 2017 , Landscape and Urban Planning)