Recognition of climatic effects of land use/land cover change under global warming

Greenhouse gas emissions and land use/land cover change (LUCC) are two human activities notably affecting climate change. Will temperature and precipitation increase significantly during global warming resulting in more pronounced LUCC climatic effects? Considering the interannual forcing of these two factors, the NCAR Community Atmosphere Model (CAM4.0) was used in this study to investigate the importance of climatological background to LUCC impacts. Experiments based on the difference in the background climate, the greenhouse gas concentrations in 1850 and in the present age indicate contrary changes in climate sensitivity through estimations of the radiative forcing associated with LUCC, which are 0.54A degrees C/(W/m(2)) and -0.26A degrees C/(W/m(2)), respectively. Therefore, the background climate appears to play an important role in the regional impact of LUCC, especially at higher latitudes. In addition, global warming predominantly influences snow-albedo feedback in the mid-latitudes, thus determining the impact of LUCC, whereas the regional difference in precipitation caused by global warming is responsible for the differing climate response to LUCC in the tropics and subtropics.