INVESTIGADORES
SOLMAN Silvina Alicia
artículos
Título:
Forest fires in a changing climate and their impacts on air quality
Autor/es:
CARBALHO A. ; MONTEIRO A. ; FLANNIGAN M; SOLMAN S.; MIRANDA A. ; BORREGO A.
Revista:
ATMOSPHERIC ENVIRONMENT
Editorial:
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
Referencias:
Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2011 vol. 45 p. 5545 - 5553
ISSN:
1352-2310
Resumen:
ABSTRACT: In the last decades, the agricultural areas over La Plata Basin and the Argentinean
Pampas have been extended deforestation. With the aim of understanding the potential impacts
of land-use changes over the South American climate, several simulations with the regional climate
model MM5 were carried out for different idealized land-use scenarios representing agricultural
expansion, reforestation and desertification, respectively. Results show a significant warming
and drying when forests were replaced by bare soils due to an increase in the net radiation
budget and a reduction in the latent heat flux. However, the replacement of forests by crops
resulted in a decrease in the net radiation budget at the surface, together with a decrease in the
latent and sensible heat fluxes, leading to a significant cooling over central and eastern Argentina
and drying over Bolivia and western Paraguay. Finally, the shift from the actual land cover to crops
produced a cooling and wetting mainly over northern Argentina, Paraguay and part of Bolivia due
to a decrease in the net radiation budget and sensible heat flux and an increase in the latent heat
flux. The regional response for these idealized scenarios exceeds the area where the land-use was
changed, indicating that non-local mechanisms are important. A reduction in the roughness
length when forest is replaced by either crops or bare soil leads to an increase in the northerly
winds, which modifies the moisture flux convergence patterns and hence affects precipitation.