Impact of land use land cover change on East Asia

  Many socioeconomic changes have occurred in East Asia in recent decades. Due to the economic structural change and economic growth, a large population has been concentrated in the cities, resulting in rapid urban expansion. Besides, the surrounding agricultural land for food resources has also expanded, and deforestation has also been active at the same time. These land use/land cover change (LULCC) significantly alter the energy properties of the land surface. Although land surface characteristics that have vigorous variability over time, it is common in a numerical model to treat the information as a static condition. In a numerical weather prediction model aiming at short-term forecasting, the ground characteristics without temporal change are valid; however, in the numerical climate model integrated over several decades, consideration of such variability is essential.
   In this study, we examine the impact of LULCC using the GRIMs (Global/Regional Integrated Model system), which covered regional climate simulation. Temporal change LULC over East Asia, especially cropland and urban, is constructed based on Land Use Harmonization data. Through the comparison of sensitivity experiments considered the LULCC overtime or not, it is confirmed that land surface effect on regional climate change over East Asia.