The Impact of Deforestation on the Regional Climate of the Amazon Basin

The objective of the research in this project is to evaluate the impact on regional climate and surface hydrology due to the expansion of current patterns of deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia. Earlier work in this project resulted in a new quantitative characterization of the regional hydrological cycle in the Amazon region. We explored the impact of medium-scale deforestation on climate, and proposed new mechanisms for land-atmosphere-ocean interactions over the Amazon basin. A high resolution mesoscale climate model has been developed to use satellite estimates of deforestation patterns in the Amazon in order to predict their impact on regional hydrology. The same model will assimilate information about precipitation from NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM).

Countries: Brazil

Region: South America

MIT Department: School of Engineering Civil and Environmental Engineering

Contact: Elfatih A B Eltahir

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