Data for Nature Climate Change article 'Regional dry-season climate changes due to three decades of Amazonian deforestation'

Khanna, Jaya; Medvigy, David; Fueglistaler, Stephan; Walko, Robert
Issue date: 2017
Cite as:
Khanna, Jaya, Medvigy, David, Fueglistaler, Stephan, & Walko, Robert. (2017). Data for Nature Climate Change article 'Regional dry-season climate changes due to three decades of Amazonian deforestation' [Data set]. https://doi.org/10.34770/ghkd-4558
@electronic{khanna_jaya_2017,
  author      = {Khanna, Jaya and
                Medvigy, David and
                Fueglistaler, Stephan and
                Walko, Robert},
  title       = {{Data for Nature Climate Change article '
                Regional dry-season climate changes due
                to three decades of Amazonian deforestat
                ion'}},
  year        = 2017,
  url         = {https://doi.org/10.34770/ghkd-4558}
}
Abstract:

More than 20% Amazon rainforest has been cleared in the past three decades triggering important hydroclimatic changes. Small-scale (~few kilometers) deforestation in the 1980s has caused thermally-triggered atmospheric circulations that increase regional cloudiness and precipitation frequency. However, these circulations are predicted to diminish as deforestation increases. Here we use multi-decadal satellite records and numerical model simulations to show a regime shift in the regional hydroclimate accompanying increasing deforestation in Rondônia, Brazil. Compared to the 1980s, present-day deforested areas in downwind western Rondônia are found to be wetter than upwind eastern deforested areas during the local dry season. The resultant precipitation change in the two regions is approximately ±25% of the deforested area mean. Meso-resolution simulations robustly reproduce this transition when forced with increasing deforestation alone, showing a negligible role of large-scale climate variability. Furthermore, deforestation-induced surface roughness reduction is found to play an essential role in the present-day dry season hydroclimate. Our study illustrates the strong scale-sensitivity of the climatic response to Amazonian deforestation and suggests that deforestation is sufficiently advanced to have caused a shift from a thermally- to a dynamically-driven hydroclimatic regime.

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Description:

This submission pertains to the Nature Climate Change article: Regional dry-season climate changes due to three decades of Amazonian deforestation. This article uses several satellite observations and numerical simulations to analyze the regional hydroclimatic effects of contemporary deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. This submission includes all the scripts used to generate the figures, tables and numerically simulated model output reported in the article. This submission also includes the cloud cover maps (and associated MATLAB codes) generated using the GridSat dataset which support the findings of this article. The associated processed land cover maps are also provided. The user is referred to the README file for full details on the usage of this submission.

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