Assessing Disagreement and Tolerance of Misclassification of Satellite-derived Land Cover Products Used in WRF Model Applications

As more satellite-derived land cover products used in the study of global change,especially climate modeling,assessing their quality has become vitally important.In this study,we developed a distance metric based on the parameters used in weather research and forecasting(WRF) to characterize the degree of disagreement among land cover products and to identify the tolerance for misclassification within the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme(IGBP) classification scheme.We determined the spatial degree of disagreement and then created maps of misclassification of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectoradiometer(MODIS) products,and we calculated overall and class-specific accuracy and fuzzy agreement in a WRF model.Our results show a high level of agreement and high tolerance of misclassification in the WRF model between large-scale homogeneous landscapes,while a low level of agreement and tolerance of misclassification appeared in heterogeneous landscapes.The degree of disagreement varied significantly among seven regions of China.The class-specific accuracy and fuzzy agreement in MODIS Collection 4 and 5 products varied significantly.High accuracy and fuzzy agreement occurred in the following classes:water,grassland,cropland,and barren or sparsely vegetated.Misclassification mainly occurred among specific classes with similar plant functional types and low discriminative spectro-temporal signals.Some classes need to be improved further;the quality of MODIS land cover products across China still does not meet the common requirements of climate modeling.Our findings may have important implications for improving land surface parameterization for simulating climate and for better understanding the influence of the land cover change on climate.     

Spatial and Quantitative Comparison of Satellite-Derived Land Cover Products over China

Because land cover plays an important role in global climate change studies, assessing the agreement among different land cover products is critical. Significant discrepancies have been reported among ...     

Identifying and Quantifying Pixel-Level Uncertainty among Major Satellite Derived Global Land Cover Products

Accurate global land cover(GLC), as a key input for scientific communities, is important for a wide variety of applications. In order to understand the current suitability and limitation of GLC products, the discrepancy and pixellevel uncertainty in major GLC products in three epochs are assessed in this study by using an integrated uncertainty index(IUI) that combines the thematic uncertainty and local classification accuracy uncertainty. The results show that the overall spatial agreements(Ao values) between GLC products are lower than 58%, and the total areas of forests are very consistent in major GLC products, but significant differences are found in different forest classes.The misclassification among different forest classes and mosaic types can account for about 20% of the total disagreements. The mean IUI almost reaches 0.5, and high uncertainty mostly occurs in transition zones and heterogeneous areas across the world. Further efforts are needed to make in the land cover classifications in areas with high uncertainty. Designing a classification scheme for climate models, with explicit definitions of land cover classes in the threshold of common attributes, is urgently needed. Information of the pixel-level uncertainty in major GLC products not only give important implications for the specific application, but also provide a quite important basis for land cover fusion.     

中国区域陆面覆盖变化的气候效应模拟研究

基于MODIS和CLCV陆面覆盖资料,利用区域气候模式RegCM4分别进行两组24年（1978-2001年）的数值模拟试验,研究中国区域陆面覆盖变化对区域气候的影响。结果表明,以荒漠化和植被退化为主要特征的陆面覆盖变化通过改变陆面能量、水分平衡与大尺度环流进而对气候要素产生重要影响。夏季,中国南方地区普遍降温,季风边缘区及藏北高原气温升高,降水减少;季风边缘区与西北地区气温年际波动加剧;内蒙古中东部地区西南风增强,进而水汽输送增强,一定程度上增加了该地区降水。冬季,中国东部地区偏北气流增强,更多干燥冷空气南下,使得黄河以南地区降水减少、气温降低。     

Statistical estimation of high-resolution surface air temperature from MODIS over the Yangtze River Delta,China

High-resolution surface air temperature data are critical to regional climate modeling in terms of energy balance, urban climate change, and so on. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land surface temperature (LST) to estimate air temperature at a high resolution over the Yangtze River Delta region, China. It is found that daytime LST is highly correlated with maximum air temperature, and the linear regression coefficients vary with the type of land surface. The air temperature at a resolution of 1 km is estimated from the MODIS LST with linear regression models. The estimated air temperature shows a clear spatial structure of urban heat islands. Spatial patterns of LST and air temperature differences are detected, indicating maximum differences over urban and forest regions during summer. Validations are performed with independent data samples, demonstrating that the mean absolute error of the estimated air temperature is approximately 2.5°C, and the uncertainty is about 3.1°C, if using all valid LST data. The error is reduced by 0.4°C (15%) if using best-quality LST with errors of less than 1 K. The estimated high-resolution air temperature data have great potential to be used in validating high-resolution climate models and other regional applications.     

Sensitivity of carbon cycling in the European Alps to changes of climate and land cover

Assessments of the impacts of global change on carbon stocks in mountain regions have received little attention to date, in spite of the considerable role of these areas for the global carbon cycle. We used the regional hydro-ecological simulation system RHESSys in five case study catchments from different climatic zones in the European Alps to investigate the behavior of the carbon cycle under changing climatic and land cover conditions derived from the SRES scenarios of the IPCC. The focus of this study was on analyzing the differences in carbon cycling across various climatic zones of the Alps, and to explore the differences between the impacts of various SRES scenarios (A1FI, A2, B1, B2), and between several global circulation models (GCMs, i.e., HadCM3, CGCM2, CSIRO2, PCM). The simulation results indicate that the warming trend generally enhances carbon sequestration in these catchments over the first half of the twenty-first century, particularly in forests just below treeline. Thereafter, forests at low elevations increasingly release carbon as a consequence of the changed balance between growth and respiration processes, resulting in a net carbon source at the catchment scale. Land cover changes have a strong modifying effect on these climate-induced patterns. While the simulated temporal pattern of carbon cycling is qualitatively similar across the five catchments, quantitative differences exist due to the regional differences of the climate and land cover scenarios, with land cover exerting a stronger influence. The differences in the simulations with scenarios derived from several GCMs under one SRES scenario are of the same magnitude as the differences between various SRES scenarios derived from one single GCM, suggesting that the uncertainty in climate model projections needs to be narrowed before accurate impact assessments under the various SRES scenarios can be made at the local to regional scale. We conclude that the carbon balance of the European Alps is likely to shift strongly in the future, driven mainly by land cover changes, but also by changes of the climate. We recommend that assessments of carbon cycling at regional to continental scales should make sure to adequately include sub-regional differences of changes in climate and land cover, particularly in areas with a complex topography.     

The Relative Impact of Regional Scale Land Cover Change and Increasing CO_2 over China

A series of 17-yr equilibrium simulations using the NCAR CCM3 (T42 resolution) were performed to investigate the regional scale impacts of land cover change and increasing CO2 over China. Simulations with natural and current land cover at CO2 levels of 280, 355, 430, and 505 ppmv were conducted. Results show statistically significant changes in major climate fields (e.g. temperature and surface wind speed) on a 15-yr average following     

The Relative Impact of Regional Scale Land Cover Change and Increasing CO2 over China

A series of 17-yr equilibrium simulations using the NCAR CCM3 (T42 resolution) were performed to investigate the regional scale impacts of land cover change and increasing CO2 over China. Simulations with natural and current land cover at CO2 levels of 280,355, 430, and 505 ppmv were conducted. Results show statistically significant changes in major climate fields (e.g. temperature and surface wind speed) on a 15-yr average following land cover change. We also found increases in the maximum temperature and in the diurnal temperature range due to land cover change. Increases in CO2 affect both the maximum and minimum temperature so that changes in the diurnal range are small. Both land cover change and CO2 change also impact the frequency distribution of precipitation with increasing CO2 tending to lead to more intense precipitation and land cover change leading to less intense precipitation-indeed, the impact of land cover change typically had the opposite effect versus the impacts of CO2. Our results provide support for the inclusion of future land cover change scenarios in long-term transitory climate inodelling experiments of the 21st Century. Our results also support the inclusion of land surface models that can represent future land cover changes resulting from an ecological response to natural climate variability or increasing CO2. Overall, we show that land cover change can have a significant impact on the regional scale climate of China, and that regionally, this impact is of a similar magnitude to increases in CO2 of up to about 430 ppmv. This means that that the impact of land cover change must be accounted for in detection and attribution studies over China.     

基于统计年鉴和MODIS的中国区域土地利用/覆盖变化特征研究

土地利用/覆盖变化(Land Use/Cover Change,LUCC)是影响区域气候变化不可忽略的因素,然而目前还没有十分可靠的土地利用/覆盖数据,因此其对气候变化影响的研究存在很大不确定性。基于此,利用中国统计年鉴(简称年鉴)和中分辨率成像光谱仪(MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer,MODIS)遥感观测资料,以行政区为研究单元对3种典型土地利用/覆盖类型(森林、城市和农田)的变化进行了比较分析。结果表明:(1)2004~2011年,年鉴和MODIS森林覆盖率在中国各省(市、区)的分布和变化整体一致性较好,年鉴和MODIS数据都显示全国大部分省(市、区)份的森林覆盖率均有不同程度的增加,而仅MODIS数据中的北京、天津、吉林、黑龙江、上海、江苏森林覆盖率降低。MODIS数据能准确反映森林总体覆盖情况,由于类别精度不够,对单种森林类型及变化的描述存在较大误差。(2)年鉴表明中国东部城市建成区覆盖率及其增长远高于西部地区,黄淮海地区、东南部沿海地区城镇用地呈现加速扩张趋势,符合实际情况。但MODIS数据没有表征出中国区域近10年来的快速城市化进程,可能原因是城市面积较小,且地面地物分布复杂,受空间分辨率的限制,在离散的不集中的区域MODIS数据的土地覆盖类型分类精度较低,导致监测不到新城市的扩张。(3)MODIS农田面积和年鉴农作物播种面积、有效灌溉面积覆盖率的数值和空间分布均有较好的一致性,均是黄淮海地区覆盖率最大。但在2001~2011年,3种数据变化量的差异较大,尤其东部省(市、区)份,MODIS农田面积和年鉴有效灌溉面积增加,而年鉴农作物播种面积减少。(4)2004~2011年中国土地利用类型变化中年鉴城市建成区的变化速率最大(6.25%),其次为森林;耕地由于总量大,变化部分所占的比例较小,因而MOIDS农田及年鉴农作物播种面积和有效灌溉面积的变化速率均较小。     

Modeling land use and cover as part of global environmental change

Land use and cover changes are important elements of the larger problem of global environmental change. Landuse patterns result in landcover changes that cumulatively affect the global biosphere and climate. We describe efforts to analyze the driving forces behind land transformations and to create land use models that can be linked to other types of global change models. Two efforts to model land use in the U.S. are reviewed. One projects aggregate agricultural, forest, and range land, and the other attempts to model forest land use change at the parcel scale in two mountain landscapes. We conclude with suggestions for new approaches that could clarify the role of land use/cover change in global change and in natural resources management.     

The role of land surface processes in regional climate change: a case study of future land cover change over south western Australia

Summary Using a high resolution regional climate model we perform multiple January simulations of the impact of land cover change over western Australia. We focus on the potential of reforestation to ameliorate the projected warming over western Australia under two emission scenarios (A2, B2) for 2050 and 2100. Our simulations include the structural and physiological responses of the biosphere to changes in climate and changes in carbon dioxide. We find that reforestation has the potential to reduce the warming caused by the enhanced greenhouse effect by as much as 30% under the A2 and B2 scenarios by 2050 but the cooling effect declines to 10% by 2100 as CO₂-induced warming intensifies. The cooling effect of reforestation over western Australia is caused primarily by the increase in leaf area index that leads to a corresponding increase in the latent heat flux. This cooling effect is localized and there were no simulated changes in temperature over regions remote from land cover change. We also show that the more extreme emission scenario (A2) appears to lead to a more intense response in photosynthesis by 2100. Overall, our results are not encouraging in terms of the potential to offset future warming by large scale reforestation. However, at regional scales the impact of land cover change is reasonably large relative to the impact of increasing carbon dioxide (up to 2050) suggesting that future projections of the Australian climate would benefit from the inclusion of projections of future land cover change. We suggest that this would add realism and regional detail to future projections and perhaps aid detection and attribution studies.     

Hydro-climatic effects of future land-cover/land-use change in montane mainland southeast Asia

Regional climate model simulations with RegCM3 were performed to investigate how future land-cover/land-use (LCLU) change in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia (MMSEA) could affect regional climate. Simulation land-surface parameterizations included present day and plausible 2050 land-covers, as well as two extreme deforestation simulations. In the simulations, the original land cover map of RegCM3, based on AVHRR 1992–93 observations, was replaced with one obtained from MODIS 2001 observations; and the model was set to work at two different spatial resolutions using the sub-grid feature of the land surface model: 27.79 km for the atmosphere and 9.26 km for the land surface. During validation, modeled precipitation closely matched observed precipitation over southern China, but underestimated precipitation in the Indochina Peninsula. The plausible 2050 LCLU simulation predicted little change in regional climate. However, an extreme irrigated crop parameterization caused precipitation to increase slightly in the Indochina Peninsula, decrease substantially in southeastern China, and increase significantly in the South China Sea. The extreme short-grass parameterization caused substantial precipitation decreases in MMSEA, but few changes elsewhere. These simulations indicate in order for significant climatological changes to occur, substantially more LCLU conversion is required than the 16 % change we incorporated into the plausible 2050 land-cover scenario.     

A subgrid parameterization of orographic precipitation

Summary Estimates of the impact of global climate change on land surface hydrology require climate information on spatial scales far smaller than those explicitly resolved by global climate models of today and the foreseeable future. To bridge the gap between what is required and what is resolved, we propose a subgrid-scale parameterization of the influence of topography on clouds, precipitation, and land surface hydrology. The parameterization represents subgrid variations in surface elevation in terms of probability distributions of discrete elevation classes. Separate cloud, radiative, and surface processes are calculated for each elevation class. Rainshadow effects are not treated by the parameterization; they have to be explicitly resolved by the host model. The simulated surface temperature, precipitation, and snow cover for each elevation class are distributed to different geographical locations according to the spatial distribution of surface elevation within each grid cell.The subgrid parameterization has been implemented in the Pacific Northwest Laboratory's climate version of the Penn State/NCAR Mesoscale Model. The scheme is evaluated by driving the regional climate model with observed lateral boundary conditions for the Pacific Northwest and comparing simulated fields with surface observations. The method yields more realistic spatial distributions of precipitation and snow cover in mountainous areas and is considerably more computationally efficient than achieving high resolution by the use of nesting in the regional climate model.With 17 Figures     

Parameterization of snow-free land surface albedo as a function of vegetation phenology based on MODIS data and applied in climate modelling

The aim of this study was to develop an advanced parameterization of the snow-free land surface albedo for climate modelling describing the temporal variation of surface albedo as a function of vegetation phenology on a monthly time scale. To estimate the effect of vegetation phenology on snow-free land surface albedo, remotely sensed data products from the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the NASA Terra platform measured during 2001 to 2004 are used. The snow-free surface albedo variability is determined by the optical contrast between the vegetation canopy and the underlying soil surface. The MODIS products of the white-sky albedo for total shortwave broad bands and the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (FPAR) are analysed to separate the vegetation canopy albedo from the underlying soil albedo. Global maps of pure soil albedo and pure vegetation albedo are derived on a 0.5° regular latitude/longitude grid, re-sampling the high-resolution information from remote sensing-measured pixel level to the model grid scale and filling up gaps from the satellite data. These global maps show that in the northern and mid-latitudes soils are mostly darker than vegetation, whereas in the lower latitudes, especially in semi-deserts, soil albedo is mostly higher than vegetation albedo. The separated soil and vegetation albedo can be applied to compute the annual surface albedo cycle from monthly varying leaf area index. This parameterization is especially designed for the land surface scheme of the regional climate model REMO and the global climate model ECHAM5, but can easily be integrated into the land surface schemes of other regional and global climate models.     

Recent progress in studies on land cover change and its regional climatic effects over China during historical times

The recent progresses on the reconstruction of historical land cover and the studies on regional climatic effects to temperature,precipitation,and the East Asian Monsoon across China were reviewed.Findings show that the land cover in China has been significantly modified by human activities over the last several thousands years,mainly through cropland expansion and forest clearance.The cropland over traditional Chinese agricultural areas increased from 5.32×105 km2 in the mid-17th century to 8.27×105 km2 in...     

The impact of land cover change on the atmospheric circulation

 The NCAR Community Climate Model (version 3), coupled to the Biosphere Atmosphere Transfer scheme and a mixed layer ocean model is used to investigate the impact on the climate of a conservative change from natural to present land cover. Natural vegetation cover was obtained from an ecophysiologically constrained biome model. The current vegetation cover was obtained by perturbing the natural cover from forest to grass over areas where land cover has been observed to change. Simulations were performed for 17 years for each case (results from the last 15 years are presented here). We find that land cover changes, largely constrained to the tropics, SE Asia, North America and Europe, cause statistically significant changes in regional temperature and precipitation but cause no impact on the globally averaged temperature or precipitation. The perturbation in land cover in the tropics and SE Asia teleconnect to higher latitudes by changing the position and strength of key elements of the general circulation (the Hadley and Walker circulations). Many of the areas where statistically significant changes occur are remote from the location of land cover change. Historical land cover change is not typically included in transitory climate simulations, and it may be that the simulation of the patterns of temperature change over the twentieth century by climate models will be further improved by taking it into account. Received: 27 May 1999 / Accepted: July 2000     

利用MODIS产品分析东北地区积雪覆盖状况及冬季气候特征

利用Terra卫星MODIS产品提取了东北地区2000-2005年积雪覆盖率信息,给出了近5a积雪覆盖率的时空变化和可信度信息,可以作为流域融雪径流预报模型的输入参数使用,也可以作为区域性积雪对气候反馈的研究依据.依照积雪覆盖的时间序列图及分布图分析了各年份冬季冷空气强度及变化和次年春季融雪状况.     

Atmosphere-land cover feedbacks alter the response of surface temperature to CO2 forcing in the western United States

In order to test the sensitivity of regional climate to regional-scale atmosphere-land cover feedbacks, we have employed a regional climate model asynchronously coupled to an equilibrium vegetation model, focusing on the western United States as a case study. CO₂-induced atmosphere-land cover feedbacks resulted in statistically significant seasonal temperature changes of up to 3.5°C, with land cover change accounting for up to 60% of the total seasonal response to elevated atmospheric CO₂ levels. In many areas, such as the Great Basin, albedo acted as the primary control on changes in surface temperature. Along the central coast of California, soil moisture effects magnified the temperature response in JJA and SON, with negative surface soil moisture anomalies accompanied by negative evaporation anomalies, decreasing latent heat flux and further increasing surface temperature. Additionally, negative temperature anomalies were calculated at high elevation in California and Oregon in DJF, MAM and SON, indicating that future warming of these sensitive areas could be mitigated by changes in vegetation distribution and an associated muting of winter snow-temperature feedbacks. Precipitation anomalies were almost universally not statistically significant, and very little change in mean seasonal atmospheric circulation occurred in response to atmosphere-land cover feedbacks. Further, the mean regional temperature sensitivity to regional-scale land cover feedbacks did not exceed the large-scale sensitivity calculated elsewhere, indicating that spatial heterogeneity does not introduce non-linearities in the response of regional climate to CO₂-induced atmosphere-land cover feedbacks.     

基于MODIS数据的土地覆盖资料对长三角城市群区域夏季高温模拟的影响评估

随着长三角地区经济发展的同时,人类活动对自然环境产生了很大影响,其中土地覆盖状况变化显著,尤以城市化扩展为主。为了评估土地覆盖资料对天气过程的数值模拟影响,了解土地覆盖变化对区域气象环境产生的作用,本文利用中尺度数值天气模式WRFV3.0/Noah/UCM,选取2005年250 m分辨率的MOD IS数据制作土地覆盖资料,针对2007年7月长三角地区一次夏季高温过程进行数值试验,分析表明:新的土地覆盖资料更真实地反映了长三角地区的下垫面结构,尤其体现出区域内城市群面积快速增长的特征。将模拟结果与高分辨率的气象站观测资料对比,统计结果显示精细化土地覆盖资料的引入明显改善了模拟效果,较真实的反映出城市化发展对区域气象环境的影响作用。