Impacts of Irrigation on the Heat Fluxes and Near-Surface Temperature in an Inland Irrigation Area of Northern China

Li Jiang, Enjun Ma and Xiangzheng Deng
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Li Jiang: School of Economics, Renmin University of China, 59 Zhongguancun Street, Beijing 100872, China
Enjun Ma: School of Mathematics and Physics, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China

Energies, 2014, vol. 7, issue 3, 1-18

Abstract: Irrigated agriculture has the potential to alter regional to global climate significantly. We investigate how irrigation will affect regional climate in the future in an inland irrigation area of northern China, focusing on its effects on heat fluxes and near-surface temperature. Using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, we compare simulations among three land cover scenarios: the control scenario (CON), the irrigation scenario (IRR), and the irrigated cropland expansion scenario (ICE). Our results show that the surface energy budgets and temperature are sensitive to changes in the extent and spatial pattern of irrigated land. Conversion to irrigated agriculture at the contemporary scale leads to an increase in annual mean latent heat fluxes of 12.10 W m ?2 , a decrease in annual mean sensible heat fluxes of 8.85 W m ?2 , and a decrease in annual mean temperature of 1.3 °C across the study region. Further expansion of irrigated land increases annual mean latent heat fluxes by 18.08 W m ?2 , decreases annual mean sensible heat fluxes by 12.31 W m ?2 , and decreases annual mean temperature by 1.7 °C. Our simulated effects of irrigation show that changes in land use management such as irrigation can be an important component of climate change and need to be considered together with greenhouse forcing in climate change assessments.

Keywords: irrigated cropland; energy budget; climate change; soil moisture; land management change; evaporative cooling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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