| It is widely recognized that terrestrial ecosystems play an important role in maintaining the climate system. Vegetation influences the climate through complex biophysical exchanges of energy, water, and momentum, and changes to these fluxes can have a significant impact on the climate. As a result, natural and anthropogenic land use and land cover change can have a substantial impact on climate.; Using a coupled atmosphere-biosphere model (CCM3-IBIS), the influence of vegetation on climate at the regional, continental, and global scales is evaluated. Comparison of the vegetation removal and control simulations illustrates the climatic influence of particular vegetation types. The mechanisms responsible for influencing the climate away from the surface, into the atmosphere, and to remote regions not directly coupled to the surface forcing are investigated.; It was found that vegetation biomes from around the globe have a significant influence on the climate system with the response dictated by the vegetation type, the geographic location, and the physical processes important for that biome. For instance, the climate response to tropical deforestation is a surface warming due to a large reduction in latent cooling. In contrast, boreal deforestation causes a large surface temperature cooling due to a higher surface albedo.; It was also shown that changes in the land surface resulting from land cover change affect the transport of energy throughout the three-dimensional atmosphere and can change the climate in adjacent regions or locations far removed from the surface forcing through modification of deep moist convection.; Finally, the results indicate that tropical deforestation can have a significant influence on the northern hemisphere climate through changes to the atmospheric thermodynamics and general circulation. Tropical deforestation was found to influence the northern hemisphere climate through changes to the high-level tropical outflow, the strength and structure of the East Asian Jet, the poleward shift in the high-latitude jet, and changes to the Eurasian climate through amplification of the positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation. |
