Modelling and analysis of the impact of irrigation on local arid climate over northwest China |
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| Authors: | Lijuan Wen Jiming Jin |
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| Institution: | 1. Departments of Watershed Sciences and Plants, Soils, and Climate, Utah State University, UT 84322, USA;2. Key Laboratory of Land Surface Process and Climate Change in Cold and Arid Regions, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China |
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| Abstract: | This study focuses on how irrigation processes affect local climate over arid areas. The chosen study area is northwest China, a typical arid region where three dominant land‐use types are irrigated cropland, grassland, and desert. Observational analysis indicates that the highest precipitation, the coolest surface temperatures, and the slowest warming trend are seen over irrigated cropland from 1979 to 2005. The single column atmospheric model (SCAM), developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), was used to investigate and better understand the differences in long‐term climate conditions and change over the above three land‐use types. The results indicate that local climate conditions are predominantly controlled by large‐scale forcing in this arid region and that local land surface forcing related to vegetation cover change and irrigation processes also has a significant impact. This study strongly suggests that a realistic climate forecast for this region can be achieved only with both accurate large‐scale and local climate forcing. The irrigated cropland of the region generates stronger evaporation that cools the surface and slows the warming trend more than does the evaporation from the natural grassland and desert. Stronger evaporation also significantly increases precipitation, potentially alleviating the stress of irrigation demands in arid regions. A series of sensitivity SCAM simulations indicate that a drier and warmer climate occurs with decreasing vegetation cover in the irrigated cropland region. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
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| Keywords: | irrigation climate model arid climate |
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