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.
Highlights
The Amazon (AMZ) forest is the largest tropical rainforest on Earth [1]. It covers approximately 5,5 million km2, with an area of 60% located in Brazil [2]. Some problems in this region are associated with the deforestation and the land use change (LUC) and their impacts on the climate
One simulation was without implementation of LUC, i.e. by assuming the default land cover map of the model, the control experiment (CTRL), and in the other one we used an idealized LUC over the AMZ basin, i.e. we changed all broadleaf evergreen trees tropical to C3 grass in order to assess the impact of these features in the present day climate and investigate underlying physical processes
We show the results obtained with LUC minus CTRL experiment
Summary
The Amazon (AMZ) forest is the largest tropical rainforest on Earth [1]. It covers approximately 5,5 million km, with an area of 60% located in Brazil [2]. Some problems in this region are associated with the deforestation (such as biomass burning and forest fragmentation) and the land use change (LUC) and their impacts on the climate. Deforested areas present higher surface albedo compared with that without changes [5,6].
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