Chapter 05, Human Effects on Climate Through Land-Use-Induced Land-Cover Change

By Ann Henderson-Sellers

Elsevier Science
Publication date: December 2011

ISBN: 9780124096349

Digital Book format: ePub (Adobe DRM)

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This chapter provides an overview of how humans affect climate through land surface modification. In terms of climate modification, "climate" means a longer-term statistic (e.g., decades), but does not necessarily imply averages. "Modification" means a measurable impact on climate statistics that can be formally attributed to the land cover change and are detectable above the background noise induced by natural variability. Large-scale landscape modification can occur two ways. Humans can clear forests with fire, a chainsaw, tractor or bulldozer. They also grow crops or build cities. This is a direct modification that is very obvious. Emissions of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels can also indirectly affect the large-scale landscape via the CO2 fertilization effect that might lead to a change in leaf size, vegetation height, and stomatal function, via competition species types and via evolution of the nature of the vegetation itself. This indirect effect, among others, is subtler than deforestation but globally integrated may be more important.

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