Open AccessEffects of Twenty-First-Century Climate Change on the Amazon Rain Forest
Author(s) -
Kerry H. Cook,
Edward K. Vizy
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of climate
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.315
H-Index - 287
eISSN - 1520-0442
pISSN - 0894-8755
DOI - 10.1175/2007jcli1838.1
Subject(s) - amazon rainforest , climatology , vegetation (pathology) , gcm transcription factors , environmental science , subtropics , climate model , climate change , general circulation model , tropical vegetation , tropics , rainforest , precipitation , geography , geology , meteorology , ecology , medicine , oceanography , pathology , biology
A regional atmospheric model with 60-km resolution is asynchronously coupled with a potential vegetation model to study the implications of twenty-first-century climate change for the tropical and subtropical climate and vegetation of South America. The coupled model produces an accurate simulation of the present day climate and vegetation. Future climate is simulated by increasing atmospheric CO2 levels to 757 ppmv and imposing lateral and surface boundary conditions derived from a GCM simulation for 2081–2100 from the Canadian Climate Center GCM. The coupled regional model simulation projects a 70% reduction in the extent of the Amazon rain forest by the end of the twenty-first century and a large eastward expansion of the caatinga vegetation that is prominent in the Nordeste region of Brazil today. These changes in vegetation are related to reductions in annual mean rainfall and a modification of the seasonal cycle that are associated with a weakening of tropical circulation systems.