Global assessment of the impact of irrigation on land surface temperature

Local temperature responses to actual land cover changes present significant latitudinal variability and asymmetry

Land cover changes (LCCs) affect surface temperatures at local scale through biophysical processes. However, previous observation-based studies mainly focused on the potential effects of virtual afforestation/deforestation using the space-for-time assumption, while the actual effects of all types of realistic LCCs are underexplored. Here, we adopted the space-and-time scheme and utilized extensive high-resolution (1-km) satellite observations to perform the first such assessment. We showed that, from 2006 to 2015, the average temperature in the areas with LCCs increased by 0.08 K globally, but varied significantly across latitudes, ranging from -0.05 to 0.18 K. Cropland expansions dominated summertime cooling effects in the northern mid-latitudes, whereas forest-related LCCs caused warming effects elsewhere. These effects accounted for up to 44.6% of overall concurrent warming, suggesting that LCC influences cannot be ignored. In addition, we revealed obvious asymmetries in the actual effects, i.e., LCCs with warming effects occurred more frequently, with stronger intensities, than LCCs with cooling effects. Even for the mutual changes between two covers in the same region, warming LCCs generally had larger magnitudes than their cooling counterparts due to asymmetric changes in transition fractions and driving variables. These novel findings, derived from the assessment of actual LCCs, provide more realistic implications for land management and climate adaptation policies.

Global mapping of urban thermal anisotropy reveals substantial potential biases for remotely sensed urban climates

Urban thermal anisotropy (UTA) drastically impacts satellite-derived urban surface temperatures and fluxes, and consequently makes it difficult to gain a more comprehensive understanding of global urban climates. However, UTA patterns and associated biases in observed urban climate variables have not been investigated across an adequate number of global cities with diverse contexts; nor is it known whether there are globally measurable factors that are closely related to the UTA intensity (UTAI, quantified as the maximum difference between the nadir and off-nadir urban thermal radiation). Here we investigate the UTAI over more than 5500 cities worldwide using multi-angle land surface temperature (LST) observations from 2003 to 2021 provided by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). The results show that the global mean UTAI can reach 5.1, 2.7, 2.4, and 1.7 K during summer daytime, winter daytime, summer nighttime, and winter nighttime, respectively. Using nadir LST observations as a reference, our analysis reveals that UTA can lead to an underestimation of satellite-based urban surface sensible heat fluxes (H) by 45.4% and surface urban heat island intensity (Is) by 43.0% when using LST observations obtained from sensor viewing zenith angles (VZAs) of ±60°. Practitioners can limit the biases of H and Is within ±10% by using LSTs from sensor VZAs within ±30°. We also find that UTAI is closely related to urban impervious surface percentage and surface air temperature across global cities. These findings have implications for angular normalization of satellite-retrieved instantaneous LST observations across cities worldwide.

Multi-temporal assessment of land surface temperatures as an indicator of land use/cover changes and climate variability in the Develi Basin, Turkey

Land surface temperature (LST) is an important parameter that reflects land surface processes of water and energy balance and has been used in assessment of land use/cover changes. However, the use of LST in monitoring changes in non-urban areas such as agricultural areas and wetlands is still limited. In this study, we aim to determine the spatial and temporal changes in LST in a semi-arid agricultural basin in Turkey (Develi Basin), where land use/cover and climatic conditions showed considerable variability since 1980s. Irrigated agriculture have expanded in the basin since 1987, after the construction of a large irrigation project. The basin hosts an internationally important wetland, called the Sultan Marshes, affected negatively by irrigation expansion. The study covers a 39-year period from 1984 to 2022. Four Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) images acquired in 1984, 1987, 2003, and 2007 and two Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS images acquired in 2014 and 2022 were used in the analyses. The land use/cover changes were evaluated based on Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). LST was estimated through top-of-atmosphere brightness temperature from thermal bands of Landsat images. Climate variability from 2014 to 2022 was analyzed with statistical methods. The results indicated that Develi Basin faced both spatial and temporal land use/cover changes. The area covered with natural steppe vegetation and water bodies decreased in the basin. In contrast, the sparsely and densely vegetated soil covers, which mostly denote agricultural areas, increased. Changes in LST values were observed from 1984 to 2022 as a result of climatic factors and land use/cover changes. LST changes were variable across different land use/cover types; LST decreased in irrigated areas and increased in lakes that went dry over years. LST changes proved useful for evaluating land use/cover changes and climatic variations in agricultural basins.

Attribution of local land surface temperature variations response to irrigation over the North China Plain

Irrigation substantially alters land surface temperature (LST) in different regions of the world. Studies have recently focused on quantifying irrigation-induced LST change based on remote sensing technology due to its high spatiotemporal resolution. However, the biophysical mechanisms of irrigation on LST remains poorly understood. Here we first investigated the impact of irrigation on LST during 2003-2012 over the North China Plain (NCP), which is one of the most intensively irrigated areas around the word. We then attributed the mechanisms underlying LST change between adjacent irrigated and non-irrigated croplands based on two surface energy balance-based methods: the Decomposed Temperature Metric (DTM) method and the intrinsic biophysical mechanism (IBM) method. The results indicate that at annual scale, irrigation produce an overall cooling effect over the NCP, with the mean observed LST change of -0.098 K, calculated LST change of -0.096 K for DTM method and -0.165 K for IBM method, respectively. Furthermore, the agreement between the annual observed and calculated LST difference indicate that DTM is a more robust method than IBM in quantifying irrigation-induced LST change over the NCP. The attribution method DTM reveals that components of albedo and emissivity has an average cooling effect of -0.012 K and -0.005 K, respectively, while incoming radiation lead to a weak warming effect of +0.01 K. The enhanced turbulent fluxes of latent heat flux dominate the cooling effect (-0.174 K on average), further offsets the sensible heat flux warming effect (+0.085 K). Another attribution method IBM demonstrates that the annual cooling effect of irrigation is mostly induced by changes in aerodynamic resistance (-0.175 K), whereas the biophysical contributions of albedo (-0.0005 K) and Bowen ratio (+0.001 K) have a negligible impact on LST. This study provides a useful reference for assessing local climate impact of irrigation when implementing environmental protection projects.

Effects of different plastic film mulching on soil hydrothermal conditions and grain-filling process in an arid irrigation district

Plastic film mulching has been extensively used for spring maize (Zea mays L.) production in the Hetao Irrigation District (HID). Determining whether transparent plastic film mulching results in premature senescence and yield reduction of spring maize still needs to be verified. A two-year field experiment was conducted in the HID that involved planting spring maize under three mulching practices on a flat plot 1) without mulching (control treatment, CK), 2) with black plastic film mulching (BM), 3) with transparent plastic film mulching (TM). The results indicated that TM and BM were superior to CK in terms of effects on soil hydrothermal conditions. Compared with BM, TM produced significantly higher soil temperature at V6, and had no significant temperature effect at V12, R1, R3, and R6. Both TM and BM promoted early seedling emergence and earlier silking, and TM extended the duration of the reproductive stages by 1-2 days compared with BM, and 4-5 days longer than CK. TM and BM produced greater kernel weights and kernel volumes in the superior and middle portions of the ear than CK. TM produced significantly greater total kernel weights per ear than BM at and after 23 days after silking. TM significantly increased grain-filling rate and length of the active grain-filling period compared with BM and CK. Additionally, TM and BM produced significantly higher photosynthetic parameters than CK at the grain-filling stage in the two study years. The net photosynthesis rate for TM was significantly greater than for BM. TM and BM significantly increased grain yields by 28.1% and 15.1%, respectively, in 2019 over CK, and by 24.6% and 21.1% in 2020. Transparent plastic film mulching could serve as a promising adaptive management practice to increase resource use efficiency and to improve maize productivity in the HID.