Resposta do clima amazônico ao desmatamento progressivo da Amazônia e do Cerrado / Response of the Amazonian climate to progressive deforestation of the Amazon and Cerrado

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

IBICT - Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

14/02/2012

RESUMO

There is a clear shift happening in the physical environment of the Amazon forest, where human intervention has intensified dramatically during the last half of the twentieth century. Recent studies suggest that changes in regional climate caused by local deforestation have the potential to cause parts of the Amazon to cross an ecological tipping point: a critical threshold at which a relatively small perturbation can qualitatively alter the state or development of a system, in this case shifting the Amazon system into a new and drier equilibrium. In addition to the deforestation of the Amazon, continuing deforestation of the Cerrado (which has already been deforested by more than 55%) could combine with the climate impacts of Amazonian deforestation to produce a significant increase of the duration of the dry season in the transition zone between forest and savanna (arc-of-deforestation‟) in south east Amazonia. However, the limits and patterns of deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado that would affect forest‟s climate remain unknown. The aim of this study is to investigate the response of the climate of different regions of the Amazon rainforest to progressive deforestation of the Amazon and the Cerrado, and assess the possibility of the emergence of an alternative bioclimatic equilibrium. To achieve this goal, we generated 10 Amazon deforestation scenarios and 10 mixed deforestation scenarios, combining forest and savanna removal, and all scenarios were implemented in the coupled atmosphere-biosphere model CCM3-IBIS. We run 5 ensembles for each scenario, for 50 years each, with CO2 fixed at 380 ppm. The results show that when we consider the climate for the total forest area, there is no transposition of the tipping point. However, considering the arc-of-deforestation climate, we observed the emergence of a bioclimatic equilibrium typical of seasonal forest, and in regions in the south, southwest and east of the forest a bioclimatic equilibrium typical of savanna. In all of these cases, the combined effect of forest and Cerrado deforestation was significant. These results show the resilience of some regions of the forest and the vulnerability of others, which can help decision makers and conservationists in the development and implementation of conservation policies.

ASSUNTO(S)

climatologia agrícola amazônia desmatamento hidroclimatologia climatologia agricultural climatology amazon deforestation hydroclimatology

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