Thirty years of land cover and fraction cover changes over the Sudano-Sahel using landsat time series

Historical land cover maps are of high importance for scientists and policy makers studying the dynamic character of land cover change in the Sudano-Sahel, including anthropogenic and climatological drivers. Despite its relevance, an accurate high resolution record of historical land cover maps is currently lacking over the Sudano-Sahel. In this study, 30 m resolution historically consistent land cover and cover fraction maps are provided over the Sudano-Sahel for the period 1986–2015. These land cover/cover fraction maps are achieved based on the Landsat archive preprocessed on Google Earth Engine and a random forest classification/regression model, while historical consistency is achieved using the hidden Markov model. Using these historical maps, a multitude of variability in the dynamic Sudano-Sahel region over the past 30 years is revealed. On the one hand, Sahel-wide cropland expansion and the re-greening of the Sahel is observed in the discrete land cover classification. On the other hand, subtle changes such as forest degradation are detected based on the cover fraction maps. Additionally, exploiting the 30 m spatial resolution, fine-scale changes, such as smallholder or subsistence farming, can be detected. The historical land cover/cover fraction maps presented in this study are made available via an open-access platform

Brief communication: Impact of common ice mask in surface mass balance estimates over the Antarctic ice sheet

Regional climate models compute ice sheet surface mass balance (SMB) over a mask that defines the area covered by glacier ice, but ice masks have not been harmonised between models. Intercomparison studies of modelled SMB therefore use a common ice mask. The SMB in areas outside the common ice mask, which are typically coastal and high-precipitation regions, is discarded. Ice mask differences change integrated SMB by between 40.5 and 140.6 Gt yr(-1) (1.8 % to 6.0 % of ensemble mean SMB), equivalent to the entire Antarctic mass imbalance. We conclude there is a pressing need for a common ice mask protocol

Spatio-Temporal Dynamics in Grasslands Using the Landsat Archive

Grasslands are an important biotope in Europe, not only because they are widespread, but also because they provide valuable ecosystem services. The ecological value of a grassland parcel is directly proportional to the number of uninterrupted years of grassland cover. However, the area of long-term grassland (i.e., grassland of 5 years or older) is decreasing, limiting its ability to provide ecosystem services. To prevent the further disappearance of long-term grasslands, Europe developed an agricultural policy instrument in 2003 to protect grasslands of 5 years or older. Nature policy instruments aim to protect grasslands that have existed for more than 10 years to support their high environmental value. However, there is currently no multi-annual information on the location and age of grasslands at a high spatial and temporal resolution, which makes it difficult to assess the effectiveness of the current grassland protection regulations. Multi-annual satellite-based land cover classification can provide a solution for grassland area and age monitoring, which we tested by producing a series of Landsat-based land cover classification maps from 2005 to 2019 for the region of Flanders, Belgium. Historical land cover classification maps proved useful for evaluating past and present planning and policy to ensure grassland conservation, linking spatial and temporal changes in the area of long-term grasslands with policy changes and landscape dynamics. We were able to locate grasslands that were grassland between 2005 and 2014 but were converted to arable land between 2015 and 2019, identify the year in which these grasslands were converted to arable land, and demonstrate regional differences in the conservation of long-term grassland aged 5–9 years and 10 years or more. Long-term grassland aged 10 years or more disappeared faster in urban than in rural areas in Flanders between 2014 and 2019. Our study shows that multi-annual high-resolution satellite imagery provides objective and quantitative information on long-term grassland to support climate, agricultural, environmental, and nature policies

Drivers of future changes in East African precipitation

status: publishe

Present and future precipitation variability over the East African region using CORDEX simulations

status: publishe

Drivers of future changes in East African precipitation

Precipitation amounts over East Africa have been declining over the last decades. These changes and future climate change over the region are highly debated. This study analyzes drivers of future precipitation changes over East Africa by applying a classification of circulation patterns on 15 historical and future members of the COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment. Typical circulation types (CTs) are obtained. Under a high emission scenario, changes in the frequency of occurrence of these CTsattribute for23%of the total change in precipitation over East Africa by the end of the century. The remaining part (77%) is not related to East African synoptics, e.g. changes in moisture content, local/mesoscale feedbacks, and changes in moisture influx. These other effects comprise increases in precipitation close to the equator and the Somali region, while decreases are found over northwestern Ethiopia, the Sudan region and the lake areas.journal_title: Environmental Research Letters article_type: lett article_title: Drivers of future changes in East African precipitation copyright_information: © 2016 IOP Publishing Ltd license_information: cc-by Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. date_received: 2016-03-02 date_accepted: 2016-10-21 date_epub: 2016-11-08status: publishe

Drivers of furture changes in East African precipitation

Precipitation amounts over East Africa have been declining over the last decades. These changes and future climate change over the region are highly debated. This study analyzes drivers of future precipitation changes over East Africa by applying a classification of circulation patterns on 15 historical and future members of the COordinated Regional climate Downscaling EXperiment. Typical circulation types (CTs) are obtained. Under a high emission scenario, changes in the frequency of occurrence of these CTs attribute for 23% of the total change in precipitation over East Africa by the end of the century. The remaining part (77%) is not related to East African synoptics, e.g. changes in moisture content, local/mesoscale feedbacks, and changes in moisture influx. These other effects comprise increases in precipitation close to the equator and the Somali region, while decreases are found over northwestern Ethiopia, the Sudan region and the lake areas.ISSN:1748-9326ISSN:1748-931

Assessing the surface mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet using a regional climate model

status: publishe

Hourly snowfall rates at the Princess Elisabeth station, East Antarctica (2016)

Snowfall rates at the Princess Elisabeth station, East Antarctica (71°57'S - 23°21'E) in 2016. The snowfall rate is in mm/hour (w.e) dervied from the ZE-SR relation. - FOR DETAILS AND DATA AVAILABILITY, SEE : https://ees.kuleuven.be/hydrant/aerocloud