Alteration of hydrological and energy fluxes due to afforestation

Land use changes alter the net surface balance of a local region and can lead to temperature changes on global scale. We model how land surface and vegetation types influence hydrological and energy fluxes, which can affect the local surface temperature. Using the Single Column Atmospheric Model (SCAM) setup of the Community Earth System Model (CESM), we are able to simulate changes in the land-atmosphere system. We run the Community Land Model (CLM2) coupled with the Community Atmospheric Model (CAM) to estimate gridded atmospheric data for each land type. Using the 1997 Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) for Billings, Oklahoma, we examine the sensible and latent heat fluxes and determine how accurate the single column model is at predicting the closure of the surface energy balance. These fluxes are then expected to alter the regional surface temperatures and we use these results to infer how afforestation could impact historical temperatures in the Eastern United States.