Modeling the impact of land-use change on the local regional climate of Paraguay under dry and wet conditions

抄録

Changes in vegetation traits are capable of affecting the exchanges processes of momentum, heat, and moisture between the atmosphere and the surface influencing climate over different spatial en temporal scales. Paraguay had dense forest cover until 1970 but due to agricultural expansion, the country lost two thirds of its Atlantic forest. This study aims to assess the impacts of the actual land cover changes, produced in Paraguay between the years 2000 and 1990, on the climate under wet and dry conditions. For this, the meso-scale numerical prediction model CReSiBUC was used to perform two sets of simulations for November (wet setting) and July (dry setting) 2006-2012. Each of these simulation sets used different vegetation scenarios and NDVI data but kept constant all other boundary and initial conditions. Thus, the potential effects of land-use change on precipitation were modeled and the mechanisms that may drive changes in local/regional climate were studied.