Impact of deforestation in the Amazon basin on cloud climatology

Shallow clouds are prone to appear over deforested surfaces whereas deep clouds, much less frequent than shallow clouds, favor forested surfaces. Simultaneous atmospheric soundings at forest and pasture sites during the Rondonian Boundary Layer Experiment (RBLE-3) elucidate the physical mechanisms r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2009-03, Vol.106 (10), p.3670-3674
Main Authors: Wang, Jingfeng, Chagnon, Frédéric J.F, Williams, Earle R, Betts, Alan K, Renno, Nilton O, Machado, Luiz A.T, Bisht, Gautam, Knox, Ryan, Bras, Rafael L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Atmospheric chemistry
Atmospheric circulation
Atmospherics
Basins
Boundary layers
Climate
Clouds
Conservation of Natural Resources
Convection
Convection clouds
convective available potential energy
deep clouds
Deforestation
energy transfer
Environmental impact
humidity
Land cover
meteorology and climatology
Pastures
Physical Sciences
relative humidity
Rivers
Satellite Communications
shallow clouds
Sounding
South America
tropical forests
tropical rain forests
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Summary:Shallow clouds are prone to appear over deforested surfaces whereas deep clouds, much less frequent than shallow clouds, favor forested surfaces. Simultaneous atmospheric soundings at forest and pasture sites during the Rondonian Boundary Layer Experiment (RBLE-3) elucidate the physical mechanisms responsible for the observed correlation between clouds and land cover. We demonstrate that the atmospheric boundary layer over the forested areas is more unstable and characterized by larger values of the convective available potential energy (CAPE) due to greater humidity than that which is found over the deforested area. The shallow convection over the deforested areas is relatively more active than the deep convection over the forested areas. This greater activity results from a stronger lifting mechanism caused by mesoscale circulations driven by deforestation-induced heterogeneities in land cover.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.0810156106