The Effect of Agricultural Adaptation on Future Land Atmosphere Coupling over the Central United States

Abstract:

The central United States is one of the most agriculturally productive regions on the globe and has been identified as a land atmosphere coupling hot spot. Agricultural management strategies, such as irrigation and planting practices, are known to affect local and regional temperature and precipitation patterns through moderating the surface energy balance. Agricultural management will evolve as farmers adapt to challenges associated with climate change and adopt mitigation techniques to reduce emissions. Here we explore the feedbacks between evolving adaptation and mitigation practices and climate change. Specifically, we utilize the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT) crop model to develop plausible agricultural land use scenarios, with a focus on the future of irrigation in the central U.S., for the end of the 21^st century under high and moderate future emissions that are optimized for either productivity or sustainability. We then integrate these land use scenarios in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) regional climate model coupled with the Noah land surface model with multi-parameterization (Noah-MP).