Temperature extremes in southeastern South America: Impacts of soil moisture variability

ZANINELLI, PABLO; CARRIL, ANDREA F.; CORONATO, TANEA

Trieste

Workshop; ourth Workshop on Water Resources in Developing Countries: Hydroclimate Modeling and Analysis Tools​; 2017

International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)

This work aims to characterize the climatology of the summertime heat waves affecting central-east Argentina, and to describe the mechanisms and interactions involved, emphasizing in the influence of the soil moisture conditions. Berg et al. (2014) have showed how land-atmosphere interactions affect the temperature field in those regions that are particularly sensitive to them (e.g., central-east Argentina).The role of the soil moisture variability in the triggering of temperature extremes and heat waves in central-east Argentina needs to be studied. There are evidence in the recent literature about the strong land-atmosphere coupling in a vast region of La Plata Basin (Sörensson & Menéndez 2011), therefore the soil moisture content and its variability could be playing a role as a catalyst for extreme events, modulating the development of the heat wave, its intensity and/or duration.Our analysis is based on two set of numerical model simulations conducted by an ensemble of two Regional Climate Models (LMDZ (IPSL, France) and RCA4 (Rossby Centre, Sweden)) in which the atmosphere is (i) constrained to be forced and (ii) coupled with the soil moisture respectively. Results seek (a) to stand the importance of soil moisture,as a component of the hydrological cycle, in the generation and persistence of extreme events in our region, and (b) to highlight on the importance to continue improving the land surface processes simulation in climate models.