The
Amazon region of South America plays a
significant role in global cycles of water, energy and carbon, yet it
is also
one of the most challenging biogeographical areas of the world to model
correctly. Numerous global climate models have problems with anomalous
die-back
of the Amazon rain forest variously attributed to inadequate
representation of
rainfall, faulty soil moisture dynamics or an inability to correctly
simulate
the drought tolerance of the vegetation. Such misrepresentation of the
Amazon
in global climate models can cause larger than observed excursions of
the
global carbon cycle. This poster explores soil moisture and drought
stress for Amazonia with the Simple Biosphere Model (SiB3) and
possible reasons and solutions to the rain-forest die back problem,
which
should lead to more reasonable estimates of carbon fluxes at the
ecosystem
scale.
Author: L. Prihodko, A.S. Denning, and I. Baker (lara at atmos dot colostate dot edu)
Filesize: 25.89 Kb