UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
FACULTY OF PHYSICS

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Conference: Bucharest University Faculty of Physics 2012 Meeting


Section: Atmosphere and Earth Science; Environment Protection


Title:
Local atmospheric response to land-use changes in a regional climate simulation


Authors:
Liliana VELEA, Roxana BOJARIU and R. CICA


Affiliation:
National Meteorological Administration, Bucharest, Romania


E-mail
liliana.velea@meteoromania.ro


Keywords:
regional climate model; land-use change; desertification risk


Abstract:
Certain regions from Southern part of Romanian territory (e.g. parts of Oltenia, Dobrogea) are among the most arid areas in the country. Economical conditions are the main driver for the intensity of land exploitation, but the potential changes of land-use and land-cover in this area may have an important climatic impact.In the current study, the effects of land-use changes in the Romanian Plane region in the present climate conditions are investigated. The choice of land-use types derives from user-based requirements and includes three categories: (a) tall grass (considered as natural vegetation in the absence of crop/cultivated land), (b) irrigated crop (corresponding to a more intensive agricultural use) and (c) semi-desert – an extreme case suggested by the increased risk of desertification documented for the Oltenia Plane region.We perform a 10 years (2000-2009) simulation using regional climate model RegCM, at a horizontal resolution of 40km. The simulation domain covers the entire Romanian territory and the large-scale forcing is provided by ERA-INTERIM dataset. This simulation is further used to provide boundary conditions for three nested experiments at 10 km, centered on a smaller area in the Romanian Plain. The simulations on the smaller domain are characterized in terms of land-use by (a) tall grass, (b) irrigated crop and (c) semi-desert. In the latter experiment the land-use change is applied for a limited region corresponding to Oltenia Plain, while in experiments (a) and (b) the entire Romanian Plane region is uniformly described by the corresponding land-use type. The effects on the climatic conditions are evaluated with respect to several surface parameters (precipitation, air temperature, surface wind speed, PBL height). Areas with statistically significant changes in the atmospheric conditions are identified, highlighting the local character of the land-use impact. Note: The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union, Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no. 242093.