Impact of land use on Southwest Australian regional climate

Using GMS-5 visible imagery over Southwestern Australia, cumulus clouds are detected as function of land cover use using the structural thresholding method. An ASTER image is then used to retrieve surface energy flux and moisture availability over agricultural and native vegetation areas. Results show that cumulus clouds form more frequently over native vegetation during summer and over agricultural areas during the winter months. Retrieved surface energy fluxes and moisture availability suggests that higher latent heat fluxes are responsible for the observed higher cumulus frequency over perennial vegetation during the summer.