 |
|||||||||||
|
Paper The Impact of Dynamic Vegetation on Sahelian Climate Variability in a GCM Richard Betts, Peter Cox and Chris Jones Abstract The Impact of Dynamic Vegetation on Sahelian Climate Variability in a GCM Richard Betts, Peter Cox and Chris Jones A Dynamic Global Vegetation Model has been embedded within the Hadley Centre General Circulation Model, to allow vegetation to interact with the climate via the physical properties of the land surface and the global carbon cycle. In some regions such as the Sahel, the variability of the model's climate is greatly affected by the inclusion of interactive vegetation. Compared to a simulation with fixed vegetation, a simulation with interactive vegetation shows increased variability of precipitation in the Sahel at periods of 7 years and longer. Net primary productivity (NPP) in the Sahel shows similar changes in variability relative to a simulation in which NPP is calculated but fixed leaf area and vegetation distribution remain fixed. In many other regions there is no significant difference in variability between the simulations, suggesting that the Sahel is a region of particularly high sensitivity to vegetation-climate interactions.
|