Regional Impacts of Future Land-Cover Changes on the Amazon Basin Wet-Season Climate

Silva, Renato Ramos da; Werth, David; Avissar, Roni

doi:10.1175/2007jcli1304.1

Cited by 114 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…It is estimated that these changes will lead to changes in local precipitation patterns, but how large these changes will be is still uncertain. Small-scale deforestation can lead to an increase in local precipitation by the so-called "wind effect" (93,94). On the other hand, large-scale deforestation may act to decrease the precipitation rate.…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Land-use and climate change risks in the Amazon and the need of a novel sustainable development paradigm

Nobre

Sampaio

Borma

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

664

449

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For half a century, the process of economic integration of the Amazon has been based on intensive use of renewable and nonrenewable natural resources, which has brought significant basin-wide environmental alterations. The rural development in the Amazonia pushed the agricultural frontier swiftly, resulting in widespread land-cover change, but agriculture in the Amazon has been of low productivity and unsustainable. The loss of biodiversity and continued deforestation will lead to high risks of irreversible change of its tropical forests. It has been established by modeling studies that the Amazon may have two "tipping points," namely, temperature increase of 4°C or deforestation exceeding 40% of the forest area. If transgressed, large-scale "savannization" of mostly southern and eastern Amazon may take place. The region has warmed about 1°C over the last 60 y, and total deforestation is reaching 20% of the forested area. The recent significant reductions in deforestation-80% reduction in the Brazilian Amazon in the last decade-opens up opportunities for a novel sustainable development paradigm for the future of the Amazon. We argue for a new development paradigm-away from only attempting to reconcile maximizing conservation versus intensification of traditional agriculture and expansion of hydropower capacity-in which we research, develop, and scale a high-tech innovation approach that sees the Amazon as a global public good of biological assets that can enable the creation of innovative high-value products, services, and platforms through combining advanced digital, biological, and material technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in progress.Amazon tropical forests | Amazon sustainability | Amazon land use | Amazon savannization | climate change impacts

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Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Land-use and climate change risks in the Amazon and the need of a novel sustainable development paradigm

Nobre

Sampaio

Borma

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

664

449

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Deforestation in E. Amazonia may reduce rainfall downwind in W. Amazonia (30), a region that otherwise seems less vulnerable to change in rainfall regime. In addition, lost forest transpiration results in decreased surface cooling and thereby an increase regional air temperatures, evaporative demand, and water stress in remaining forests.…”

Section: Vegetation Response To a Drying Amazonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the likelihood and mechanism of a climate-change-induced dieback of the Amazon rainforest

Malhi

Aragão

Galbraith

et al. 2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

812

795

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We examine the evidence for the possibility that 21st-century climate change may cause a large-scale ''dieback'' or degradation of Amazonian rainforest. We employ a new framework for evaluating the rainfall regime of tropical forests and from this deduce precipitation-based boundaries for current forest viability. We then examine climate simulations by 19 global climate models (GCMs) in this context and find that most tend to underestimate current rainfall. GCMs also vary greatly in their projections of future climate change in Amazonia. We attempt to take into account the differences between GCM-simulated and observed rainfall regimes in the 20th century. Our analysis suggests that dry-season water stress is likely to increase in E. Amazonia over the 21st century, but the region tends toward a climate more appropriate to seasonal forest than to savanna. These seasonal forests may be resilient to seasonal drought but are likely to face intensified water stress caused by higher temperatures and to be vulnerable to fires, which are at present naturally rare in much of Amazonia. The spread of fire ignition associated with advancing deforestation, logging, and fragmentation may act as nucleation points that trigger the transition of these seasonal forests into fire-dominated, low biomass forests. Conversely, deliberate limitation of deforestation and fire may be an effective intervention to maintain Amazonian forest resilience in the face of imposed 21st-century climate change. Such intervention may be enough to navigate E. Amazonia away from a possible ''tipping point,'' beyond which extensive rainforest would become unsustainable.carbon dioxide ͉ drought ͉ fire ͉ tropical forests ͉ adaptation

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“…Thus, without enough tropical forest, the local residents could not have any settlements with comfortable living conditions in this region [45]. While, anthropogenic activities also damage regional ecological system by annual cutting, which have caused the distributions of global climate changes [46]. Therefore, land surface changes caused by deforestation would destabilize regional climatic and hydrometerological variability [47] and then induce the climate anomalies such as changing in precipitation and temperature [48].…”

Section: Study Areasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Downscaling the Impacts of Large-Scale LUCC on Surface Temperature along with IPCC RCPs: A Global Perspective

et al. 2014

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This study focuses on the potential impacts of large-scale land use and land cover changes (LUCC) on surface temperature from a global perspective. As important types of LUCC, urbanization, deforestation, cultivated land reclamation, and grassland degradation have effects on the climate, the potential changes of the surface temperature caused by these four types of large-scale LUCC from 2010 to 2050 are downscaled, and this issue analyzed worldwide along with Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The first case study presents some evidence of the effects of future urbanization on surface temperature in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States of America (USA). In order to understand the potential climatological variability caused by future forest deforestation and vulnerability, we chose Brazilian Amazon region as the second case study. The third selected region in India as a typical region of cultivated land reclamation where the possible climatic impacts are explored. In the fourth case study, we simulate the surface temperature changes caused by future grassland degradation in Mongolia. Results show that the temperature in built-up area OPEN ACCESSEnergies 2014, 7 2721 would increase obviously throughout the four land types. In addition, the effects of all four large-scale LUCC on monthly average temperature change would vary from month to month with obviously spatial heterogeneity.

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Regional Impacts of Future Land-Cover Changes on the Amazon Basin Wet-Season Climate

Cited by 114 publications

References 65 publications

Land-use and climate change risks in the Amazon and the need of a novel sustainable development paradigm

Land-use and climate change risks in the Amazon and the need of a novel sustainable development paradigm

Exploring the likelihood and mechanism of a climate-change-induced dieback of the Amazon rainforest

Downscaling the Impacts of Large-Scale LUCC on Surface Temperature along with IPCC RCPs: A Global Perspective

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