Here’s an interesting story from Eos about unexpected changes in regional climate due to human intervention.  In this story, it’s the change from using horses to draw farm equipment to mechanized tractors which caused the change.  Horses eat oats, and the reduction in the number of horses used in farm work allowed farmers to switch to more lucrative crops.  The acreage of oats dropped dramatically, and this also changed the land cover patterns in summer from relatively light-colored oats (as they ripened) to darker soybeans.  The results of the study discussed in the story shows that with this change, heavy rainfalls also increased as the heat balance of the fields changed due to changes in land cover.  You can read more here.

Source: Commons Wikimedia