Tropical ecosystems are changing owing to deforestation, afforestation, urbanization, forest degradation, agriculture expansion, peatland drainage, and wildfire. Such a comprehensive land cover change could modulate the land-atmosphere exchanges of carbon, water, energy and momentum, not only contributing to climate change in the tropics, but also regulating global climate through teleconnections. Quantifying the spatiotemporal patterns of tropical land cover change and its multi-scale climate impacts thus have significant implications for both ecosystem (biodiversity) conservation, global carbon cycle and climate mitigation strategies. This session focuses on observing the patterns and drivers of land cover change in the tropics, and modelling how these changes affect the hydrology and climate via both biogeochemical and biogeophysical processes, at scales ranging from local to global. We welcome studies using field measurements, remote sensing observations, and regional-to-global earth system modeling to reveal the changing patterns and climate feedbacks of tropical land cover change.

• A - Atmospheric Sciences
• B - Biogeosciences
• H - Hydrology