**Land-Atmosphere Interaction in the Southwestern Karst Region of China Land-Atmosphere Interaction in the Southwestern Karst Region of China**

Jiangbo Gao, Wenjuan Hou, Kewei Jiao and Shaohong Wu Jiangbo Gao, Wenjuan Hou, Kewei Jiao and Shaohong Wu

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/64740

#### **Abstract**

Land-atmosphere interaction in the southwestern Karst region of China was investigated from two aspects: response of land cover to climate change and climatic effects of Karst rocky desertification. The first part focused on the temporal-spatial variation of growing-season normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and its relationship with climate variables. The relationships between growing-season NDVI with temperature and precipitation were both positive, indicating its limiting role on the distribution and dynamic of vegetation cover in the study area. The second part was designed to investigate whether the changed vegetation cover and land surface processes in the Karst regions was capable of modifying the summer climate simulation over East Asia. It was shown that land desertification resulted in the reduced net radiation and evaporation in the degraded areas. The East Asian summer monsoon was weakened after land degradation. Such circulation differences favored the increase in moisture flux and clouds, and thereby causing more precipitation in southeast coastal areas. Based on the above findings, it can be concluded that vegetation cover in Karst region was sensitive to climate change at larger scale, and on the other hand, there was significant feedback of vegetation cover change to regional climate by altering water and energy balance.

**Keywords:** Karst rocky desertification, climate change, land cover, southwest China, land-atmosphere interaction

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
