Temperature and precipitation from 16 climate models each using two emissions scenarios (lower B1 and mid-high A2) were used to characterize the range of potential climate changes for the Rio Lempa basin of Central America during the middle (2040–2069) and end (2070–2099) of the 21st century. A land surface model was applied to investigate the hydrologic impacts of these changes, focusing on in...

The occurrence of wildfires is very sensitive to fire meteorology, vegetation type and coverage. We investigate the potential impacts of global change (including changes in climate, land use/land cover, and population density) on wildfire frequencies over the period of 2000e2050. We account for the impacts associated with the changes in fire meteorology (such as temperature, precipitation, and ...

An increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO(2)) concentration influences climate both directly through its radiative effect (i.e., trapping longwave radiation) and indirectly through its physiological effect (i.e., reducing transpiration of land plants). Here we compare the climate response to radiative and physiological effects of increased CO(2) using the National Center for Atmospheric Res...

Climate change is generally predicted to increase net primary production, which could lead to additional C input to soil. In arid central Asia, precipitation has increased and is predicted to increase further. To assess the combined effects of these changes on soil CO2 efflux in arid land, a two factorial manipulation experiment in the shrubland of an arid region in northwest China was conducte...

A semidistributed watershed model is applied over the Mahantango Creek catchment in Pennsylvania to estimate future changes in direct runoff under 22 different climate scenarios. It is shown how different subcatchments of the watershed may respond to possible changes in the precipitation and temperature regimes. Subcatchments with the most unfavorable future runoff responses can be identified w...

This study addresses the role of soil moisture and its interaction with the overlying atmosphere in setting up climate anomalies over South America during El Niño years using observations as well as Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM) simulations. It is found that during summertime land–atmosphere interaction is instrumental in setting the spatial pattern and sign of surface air temper...

Spatially heterogeneous ecosystems form a majority of land types in the vast drylands of the globe. To evaluate climate-change effects on CO2 fluxes in such ecosystems, it is critical to understand the relative responses of each ecosystem component (microsite). We investigated soil respiration (Rs) at four sites along an aridity gradient (90– 780 mm mean annual precipitation, MAP) during almost...

Elisabeth Hamin, for their guidance in constructing the project and for posing important questions that helped drive the design of the project. I would especially like to thank Tim Randhir for working with me to build the model. I would also like to thank Nancy Sammons and Raghavan Srinivasan for their extensive support in troubleshooting problems with the model. Their willingness to take time ...

The variance budget of land surface hydrological quantities is analyzed in the second Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project (AMIP2) simulation made with the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (CCCma) third-generation general circulation model (AGCM3). The land surface parameterization in this model is the comparatively sophisticated Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS). Seco...

This paper measures the economic impact of climate change on US agricultural land by estimating the effect of random year-to-year variation in temperature and precipitation on agricultural profits. The preferred estimates indicate that climate change will increase annual profits by $1.3 billion in 2002 dollars (2002$) or 4 percent. This estimate is robust to numerous specification checks and re...