Land use change impacts on climate extremes over the historical period

Assessing the impacts of anthropogenic land use and land cover change (LULCC) on climate extremes is crucial for the public. This necessitates the utilization of state-of-the-art experiments and datasets to enhance our understanding. Here, we used CMIP6-LUMIP experimental results to show the biogeophysical effects of LULCC on extreme temperature and precipitation during the historical period. Three regions with intense LULCC in the Northern Hemisphere experienced cooling effects caused by LULCC. In contrast, only the highest maximum temperature (TXx) showed slight warming effects in three regions with intense LULCC in the Southern Hemisphere near the tropics. The maximum changes in intensity were an similar to 0.8 degrees C decrease in the TXx and nearly a 2 degrees C decrease in the 90th percentile in the lowest minimum temperature (TNn) in North America. South Asia experienced similar to 4% and 10-day decreases in warm days (TX90p) and warm spell duration (WSDI), respectively, in the 90th percentile. The precipitation response to LULCC displayed a clear difference between the Northern Hemisphere (wetter) and the Southern Hemisphere (drier), especially in terms of mean precipitation and wet days (R1mm). Previous studies support our findings that the impacts of LULCC on temperature extremes are greater in regions with intense LULCC than in remote areas. Seasonal results showed that March-April-May (MAM) and June-July-August (JJA) contributed more to the maximum temperature changes, while the minimum temperature experienced greater responses in MAM and December-January-February (DJF). LULCC tended to induce a shift toward either warmer and drier conditions or wetter and colder conditions in approximately two-thirds of season-region pairs.