Journal Club do Laboratório de Física da Atmosfera – FAP
“Rainforest-initiated wet season onset over the souther Amazon (Wright et al. PNAS 2017)”
Palestrante: Alex Araujo, IFUSP
Data: 16 de maio, quarta-feira, às 11h.
Local: Ed. Basílio Jafet, Sala 105, IFUSP.
Abstract:
Although it is well established that transpiration contributes much of the water for rainfall over Amazonia, it remains unclear whether transpiration helps to drive or merely responds to the seasonal cycle of rainfall. Here, we use multiple independent satellite datasets to show that rainforest transpiration enables an increase of shallow convection that moistens and destabilizes the atmosphere during the initial stages of the dry-to-wet season transition. This shallow convection moisture pump (SCMP) preconditions the atmosphere at the regional scale for a rapid increase in rain-bearing deep convection, which in turn drives moisture convergence and wet season onset 2–3 mo before the arrival of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
