Impacts of LULCC over LPB climate

N. L. PESSACG; S. A. SOLMAN

Toledo

Workshop; Meeting CLARIS-LPB M36; 2011

CLARIS-LPB PROJECT

This study examines the effects of land use/land cover changes (LULCC) over the climate in two important agricultural regions over southern South America, La Plata Basin and the Argentinean Pampas. In the last decade these regions have been suffered a replacement of the natural cover, mainly by the expansion of the agricultural activity, associated with an increase in the soy production. In this context and with the objective of analyze the impacts of LULCC in the southern South America climate, a series of sensitivity experiment were performed with the MM5 regional model, in which the natural cover was replaced by crop during different years related with extreme phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Simulations allow us to determine the effect over the regional climate of the local and remote forcing together, and show that the interannual variability is important when assessing the strength of the impact. In most of the cases the direction of the signal remained the same, but the strength of the signal changes with a strengthening of the wetter conditions and a weakening of the warming over north Argentina and west Paraguay during El Niño year.