Effects of Updated RegCM4 Land Use Data on Near-Surface Temperature Simulation in China

Biogeophysical effects of land use and land cover (LULC) changes play a significant role in modulating climate on various spatial scales. In this study, a set of recent LULC products with a spatial resolution of 500 m was developed in China for update in RegCM4 (regional climate model version 4). Two sets of comparative numerical experiments were conducted to study the effects of LULC changes on near-surface temperature simulation. The results show that after LULC changes, areas of crops and mixed woodlands as well as urban areas increase over entire China, accompanied with greatly expanded mixed farming and forests/field mosaics in southern China, and reduced areas of 1) irrigated crops and short grasses in northern China and the Tibetan Plateau, and 2) semi-desert and desert in northwestern China. Improvements in the LULC data clearly result in more accurate simulations of the near-surface temperature. Specifically, increasing latent heat and longwave albedo due to enhanced LULC in certain areas lead to reduction in land surface temperature (LST), while changes in shortwave albedo and sensible heat also exert a great influence on the LST. Overall, these parameter adjustments reduce the biases in near-surface temperature simulation.