A Numerical Simulation of the Impact of Vegetation Cover Changes in the Zoigê Plateau in Typical Years on the Regional Climate in 2010

The impact of real vegetation cover changes in typical years on the regional climate of the Zoigê Plateau in 2010 was studied by using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and the surface classification data of satellite remote sensing in the years 1981, 1990, 2000, and 2010. The main conclusions are: 1) The simulated latent heat flux has clearly changed in association with different surface classification data; the dominant climate response is the variation of surface temperature; and the local change is more significant than the regional average. 2) The change is driven by changes in both transpiration efficiency and albedo, with changes in transpiration efficiency dominating in Zoigê in summer. 3) After comparing the simulated profiles of temperature and humidity among different surface data, we concluded that simulated changes in vegetation cover affect temperature and humidity at low levels, but impose only small disturbance on temperature at high levels.