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Land use change over Amazon Forest and its impact on the climate
1 , * 2 , 3
1  Universidade Estadual Paulista - UNESP
2  Universidade Federal de Itajubá - UNIFEI
3  Universidade de São Paulo - USP

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to analyze the Amazon (AMZ) deforestation impact on South America (SA) climate. Hence, two simulations with RegCM4, from 1979 to 2009, were carried out: one using a default land cover map (CTRL ) and the other one using deforestation scenario (LUC), i.e., all broadleaf evergreen trees tropical was changed to C3 grass. RegCM4 was integrated at a horizontal grid spacing of about 50 km and considering 18 sigma-pressure vertical levels for SA CORDEX domain. The lateral and boundary conditions for driving the model was obtained from the ERA-INTERIM reanalysis . The climate change signal due to AMZ deforestation is evaluated by comparing the climatology of the CTRL with the LUC. AMZ deforestation changes the precipitation pattern over northern South America, i.e., appears a dipolar response consisting of reduced precipitation over eastern AMZ and an increased precipitation over western AMZ. Concerning the temperature, there is a warmer anomaly over the deforested areas, and it contributes to decrease the surface pressure. The increase in air temperature is associated to an increase of the sensible heat flux and a decrease of the latent heat flux.

Keywords: land use, Amazon Forest, climate
Comments on this paper
Raquel Nieto
change the forest to grass
Dear Marta,

do you think that it could be interesting know which is the effect of the surface changes in the transport of moisture from the Amazon to the sorrounding areas?

nice work.
Anita Drumond
Dear authors,

congratulations for the work!
Agreeing with Raquel, it will be very interesting to investigate possible changes in the moisture transport from the Amazon particularly towards La Plata region, its major sink.

kind regards,
Anita



 
 
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