Climate observations and projections for Australia show an increase in warm temperature extremes, including the frequency, duration and intensity of heatwaves. Recent global scale studies have suggested that agricultural land-use management options, such as increasing crop albedo, could reducing local warming. Australia has approximately 3,727,210 km² of cropland agricultural land-use, the majority of which is in southwest Western Australia and southeast Australia. This presents a potential opportunity to reduce regional warming via crop albedo enhancement. We use a regional climate model at 10 km resolution, to show that crop albedo enhancement of up to 0.1 could reduce monthly mean daily maximum temperatures by −1.0 °C to −1.2 °C, and monthly highest maximum temperatures by up to −1.4 °C to −1.6 °C during the cropping season. This cooling is approximately 3 times higher over Australia than global climate models predict. We highlight stronger cooling over southwest Western Australia as compared to southeast Australia, the opposite to global model studies which poorly resolve southwestern agricultural regions. The regional cooling was driven by a reduction in surface net shortwave radiation leading to a decrease in both sensible and latent heat flux of up to 50 W m⁻² and 20 W m⁻² respectively, when albedo is increased by up to 0.1. There were no cloud feedbacks or effects on precipitation. Our results highlight the importance of using regional climate models at a sufficiently high spatial resolution when investigating agricultural land-use management to reduce regional warming.

对澳大利亚的气候观测和预测表明，极端温度的升高，包括热浪的频率，持续时间和强度。最近的全球规模研究表明，农业土地利用管理方案，例如增加作物反照率，可以减少局部变暖。澳大利亚大约3,727,210公里²耕地的农业土地利用方式，其中大部分位于西澳大利亚州西南部和澳大利亚东南部。这提供了通过提高作物反照率来减少区域变暖的潜在机会。我们使用分辨率为10 km的区域气候模型，表明将作物反照率提高至0.1可以使每月平均每日最高温度降低-1.0°C至-1.2°C，每月最高最高温度降低-1.4°C种植季节的最高温度为-1.6°C。在澳大利亚，这种降温幅度大约是全球气候模型预测值的三倍。我们强调，与西南澳大利亚相比，西澳大利亚州西南部的降温要强得多，这与对西南农业地区的解析不佳的全球模型研究相反。当反照率增加到0.1时，分别为^-2和20 W m ^-2。没有云反馈或对降水的影响。我们的结果强调了在调查农业土地利用管理以减少区域变暖时，使用具有足够高空间分辨率的区域气候模型的重要性。