Land Use and Land Cover Change–Induced Surface Temperature Anomalies: The Scale Issue

While land use and land cover change (LULCC) is often a temporal phenomenon (i.e., a patch transitions from one land cover type to another), many studies use a space-for-time approximation that quantifies the LULCC impact by comparing two adjacent patches of different land covers. An important consideration embedded in this space-for-time approximation is the scale, which determines what assumptions we can make when constructing models for studying the surface temperature difference between the two adjacent patches. Most previous studies employ one-dimensional models without considering the appropriate scale associated with these models. In this presentation, the scale issue in studying LULCC-induced surface temperature anomalies will be discussed using a hierarchy of models. Typical one-dimensional models based on the surface energy balance and/or convective boundary layer dynamics will be compared to two-dimensional models where horizontal advection is explicitly considered. The results particularly highlight the importance of scale in determining the sensitivity of land surface temperature to changes in albedo and moisture/vegetation characteristics.