BE/CNH: An Integrated Analysis of Regional Land-Climate Interactions

当代人类对地球陆地表面的改变的强度和空间范围是前所未有的。 土地利用和土地覆被变化是这些人类影响中最重要的。 许多研究表明土地利用、土地利用的变化和气候变化对当地和区域气候的影响，如果这些影响加在一起，可能会大大改变全球气候。 与此同时，与大气中温室气体浓度增加有关的气候变化，由于温度和降水模式的改变，预计将对人类和生态系统产生重大影响。 虽然重要的研究集中在全球气候建模和社会经济因素影响土地利用的变化，在区域尺度上的耦合人类气候系统的综合评估需要解决的问题，土地利用和气候变化之间的相互作用在区域和地方规模的规模和性质是什么？ 通过这个研究项目，一个包括社会，生态，大气和统计科学家的国际多学科团队将通过探索全球变化研究的两个焦点，LULCC和气候变化之间的联系来解决这个问题。 全球变化科学的一个主要目标是对未来气候条件进行更可靠的估计。 这一目标越来越需要高分辨率的区域尺度气候模拟，包括土地和大气之间的反馈。 该项目旨在完成土地利用/气候/土地利用影响评估的循环。 其贡献在于分析各组成部分之间的复杂联系，特别强调土地使用变化如何影响气候以及气候变化将如何影响土地使用等问题。 将通过对农业系统、土地使用变化、土地覆盖物的物理特性和区域气候动态的分析和建模来审查这些联系。 这项研究的重点是东非，那里有各种各样的生态系统、热带气候条件、土地使用迅速变化的地区以及易受气候变化影响的人口。 该项目将综合：（1）从全球气候模型缩小尺度得出的未来地方一级气候假设;（2）从土地利用、土地利用的变化的详细长期个案研究和对观测气候的长期记录的分析得出的信息;（3）从地方到区域尺度预测土地利用、土地利用的变化的模型;（4）分析时间序列卫星图像，以反映土地利用、土地利用的变化对陆地表面特征的影响;（5）净初级生产力模拟;（6）利用当地陆面参数进行参数化的区域气候模式的气候信息。 该项目的高潮将是一系列气候-土地系统反馈实验，确定区域尺度上土地和气候动态之间相互作用的程度和性质。 调查人员将从反馈的决定形式、联系的强度、空间和时间尺度问题以及“临界点”对气候-土地相互作用的影响等方面来描述这些相互作用，该项目将对科学和政策作出重大贡献。 其科学重要性在于通过整合最先进的方法和多学科办法，处理气候变化和土地使用变化之间复杂的相互作用和反馈。 它将明确解决生物复杂性理论和复杂系统建模的重要问题，包括反馈，阈值，不确定性和非线性。 这些都是将从各种模型和案例研究中获得的信息联系起来的固有问题，以便了解与土地利用、土地利用的变化和气候变化随时间的变化联系起来有关的多尺度动态。 预期的科学发现和新方法将推动区域和全球范围的未来气候变化研究。 在应用方面，该项目将提供未来气候变化及其对东非主要生计系统的影响的合理设想。 该小组将与政策制定者和其他利益相关者（包括农民和牧民）合作，评估这些情景对该地区未来农业研究和政策、保护和土地利用规划的影响。 研究结果将与世界许多其他地区的科学家和决策者有关，他们关注土地利用和气候之间复杂的相互作用对社会和环境的影响。 除了解决许多基本的气候，生态和社会经济问题外，研究将与从小学到研究生院的学生教育紧密结合。 它将为美国和非洲的青年和中等职业科学家提供能力建设机会，并与从地方到国际社会的各种利益攸关方进行外联。 该项目得到了2003财政年度环境中生物复杂性特别竞赛的资助，该竞赛侧重于自然和人类系统耦合的动力学。

The intensity and spatial reach of contemporary human alterations of the Earth's land surface are unprecedented. Land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) are among the most significant of these human influences. Many studies demonstrate the influence of LULCC on local and regional climate, which, when aggregated, may significantly alter the global climate. Meanwhile, climate change related to increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases is expected to considerably affect people and ecosystems due to altered temperature and precipitation patterns. While significant research has focused on global climate modeling and socioeconomic factors influencing land-use change, an integrated assessment at the regional scale of coupled human-climatic systems is required to address the question, What is the magnitude and nature of the interaction between land use and climate change at regional and local scales? Through this research project, an international multidisciplinary team including social, ecological, atmospheric, and statistical scientists will address this question by exploring the linkages between two foci of global change research, LULCC and climate change. A major goal of global change science is to obtain a more reliable estimation of future climatic conditions. This goal increasingly requires high-resolution regional scale climate modeling that includes feedbacks between the land and atmosphere. This project aims to complete the loop of land-use/climate/land-use impacts assessment. Its contribution is in analysis of the complex linkages among components, with special emphasis on the questions, how does land-use change affect climate and how will climate change affect land use? These linkages will be examined through analysis and modeling of agricultural systems, land-use change, the physical properties of land cover, and regional climate dynamics. The study will focus on East Africa, which has broad ranges of ecosystems, tropical climatic conditions, and areas of rapid land use change as well as a population vulnerable to climatic variability. The project will integrate (1) future local-level climate scenarios derived from downscaling of global climate models; (2) information derived from detailed long-term case studies of LULCC and analyses of long records of observed climate; (3) models to project LULCC from local to regional scales; (4) analyses of time-series satellite imagery to translate the effects of LULCC on land surface characteristics; (5) net primary productivity simulations; and (6) climate information from a regional climate model parameterized using local land surface parameters. The culmination of the project will be a series of climate-land system feedback experiments identifying the magnitude and nature of interactions between land and climate dynamics at regional scales. The investigators will characterize these interactions in terms of the determining form of feedbacks, the strength of linkages, issues of spatial and temporal scales, and the effect of "tipping points" on climate-land interactions.The project will make a significant contribution both to science and to policy. Its scientific importance lies in addressing the complex interactions and feedback between climate change and land-use change by integrating state-of-the-art methodologies and multidisciplinary approaches. It will explicitly address issues important to biocomplexity theory and complex system modeling, including feedback, thresholds, uncertainty, and non-linearity. These are inherent issues in linking information derived from a variety of models and case studies in order to understand the multi-scale dynamics associated with linking LULCC and climate change over time. The anticipated scientific findings and new methodologies will advance future climate change research at regional and global scales. With respect to application, the project will provide plausible scenarios of future climate change and its impacts upon the dominant livelihood systems of East Africa. The team will work with policy-makers and other stakeholders, including farmers and herders, to assess the implications of these scenarios for future agricultural research and policy, conservation, and land-use planning in the region. The findings will be relevant to scientists and policy-makers in many other parts of the world who are concerned with the implications for society and environment of complex interactions between land use and climate. In addition to addressing many fundamental climatic, ecological and socioeconomic questions, the research will be tightly integrated with the education of students from elementary school to graduate school. It will provide capacity-building opportunities for young and mid-career American and African scientists as well as outreach to various stakeholders from local to international communities. This project is supported by an award resulting from the FY 2003 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.