Evidence for the influence of agriculture on weather and climate through the transformation and management of vegetation: Illustrated by examples from the Canadian Prairies

This paper lists selected observational and modeling studies which provide evidence that agriculture, through the transformation and management of vegetation, has had, and continues to have, an impact upon the weather and climate on the local, regional and global scales. The influence of agriculture on weather and climate, through the alteration of the physiological properties of the land cover, is illustrated by examples from the cropped grassland of the Canadian Prairies.The physiological and physical properties of the vegetation, along with the land cover's impact upon the level of available soil moisture, affect the weather and climate by influencing the transfer of heat, moisture and momentum from the land surface to the overlying air. The principle physiological properties are leaf area, stomatal resistance, and rooting depth; the main physical properties are albedo and surface roughness. By land clearing, cultivation and the grazing of domesticated animals, man has transformed and now manages the vegetation over vast areas of the globe. Agriculture influences the availability of energy and water vapour mass for moist deep convection on the local and regional scales. By creating latent heat flux discontinuities, it may induce mesoscale circulations that initiate moist deep convection. Agriculture, by affecting the level of stored soil moisture, moisture that is available to the vegetation during a later period, may influence the level of convective activity within a region during a subsequent season. Thus agriculture, through the physiological and physical properties of the land cover, has had, and continues to have, an impact upon near surface weather elements and, more significantly, upon the regional hydrologic cycle.Spatially coherent and persistent patterns of thunderstorms play a role in the export of heat and moisture from lower to higher latitudes—this may effect the general circulation. Thus agriculture, by influencing the occurrence, location and intensity of moist deep convection, particularly in the tropics, may also influence global weather and climate.