Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The land surface has been shown to form strong feedbacks with climate due to linkages between atmospheric conditions and terrestrial ecosystem exchanges of energy, momentum, water, and trace gases. Although often ignored in modeling studies, land management itself may form significant feedbacks. Because crops are harvested earlier under drier conditions, regional air temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture, for example, affect harvest timing, particularly of rain-fed crops. This removal of vegetation alters the land surface characteristics and may, in turn, affect regional climate. We applied a coupled climate (MM5) and land-surface (LSM1) model to examine the effects of early and late winter wheat harvest on regional climate in the Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility in the Southern Great Plains, where winter wheat accounts for 20 percent of the land area. Within the winter wheat region, simulated 2 m air temperature was 1.3oC warmer in the Early Harvest scenario at mid-day averaged over the two weeks following harvest. Soils in the harvested area were drier and warmer in the top 10 cm and wetter in the 10-20 cm layer. Midday soils were 2.5oC warmer in the harvested area at mid-day averaged over the two weeks following harvest. Harvest also dramatically altered latent and sensible heat fluxes. Although differences between scenarios diminished once both scenarios were harvested, the short-term impacts of land management on climate were comparable to those from land cover change demonstrated in other studies.