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Sensitivity of Regional Climate to Deforestation in the Amazon BasinThe deforestation results in several adverse effect on the natural environment. The focus of this paper is on the effects of deforestation on land-surface processes and regional climate of the Amazon basin. In general, the effect of deforestation on climate are likely to depend on the scale of the defrosted area. In this study, we are interested in the effects due to deforestation of areas with a scale of about 250 km. Hence, a meso-scale climate model is used in performing numerical experiments on the sensitivity of regional climate to deforestation of areas with that size. It is found that deforestation results in less net surface radiation, less evaporation, less rainfall, and warmer surface temperature. The magnitude of the of the change in temperature is of the order 0.5 C, the magnitudes of the changes in the other variables are of the order of IO%. In order to verify some of he results of the numerical experiments, the model simulations of net surface radiation are compared to recent observations of net radiation over cleared and undisturbed forest in the Amazon. The results of the model and the observations agree in the following conclusion: the difference in net surface radiation between cleared and undisturbed forest is, almost, equally partioned between net solar radiation and net long-wave radiation. This finding contributes to our understanding of the basic physics in the deforestation problem.
Document ID
19980220230
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Eltahir, Elfatih A. B.
(Massachusetts Inst. of Tech. Cambridge, MA United States)
Bras, Rafael L.
(Massachusetts Inst. of Tech. Cambridge, MA United States)
Date Acquired
August 18, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1994
Publication Information
Publication: Advances in Water Resources
Publisher: Elsevier Science Publishers
Volume: 17
ISSN: 0309-1708
Subject Category
Environment Pollution
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAG5-1615
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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