Impacts of climate and land use change on the concentration of green-house gases in Amazonia using the WRF-GHG model

• Grant number: 23/04098-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: October 01, 2023
• End date: August 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Geosciences - Meteorology
• Principal Investigator: Luciana Varanda Rizzo
• Grantee: Ben-Hur Martins Portella
• Host Institution: Instituto de Física (IF). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Company: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola Politécnica (EP)
• Associated research grant: 20/15230-5 - Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Innovation - RCG2I, AP.PCPE

Abstract

The Amazon forest has an important role in the global carbon budget, responding for 16 of the gross primary productivity by terrestrial ecosystems worldwide. Forest and atmosphere are intrinsically coupled. On one side, climate determines plant functional types and the availability of water and photosynthetically active radiation. On the other side, the vegetation affects climate directly via evapotranspiration and indirectly through the net CO2 removal from the atmosphere and through the emission of biogenic volatile organic compounds. Climate change and the increased frequency of climate extremes may diminish the forest efficiency for carbon removal. Deforestation may impact the spatial distribution of precipitation, reducing the forest resilience to climatic extremes. The main objective of the current PhD project is to investigate the sensibility of green-house gases (GHG) concentrations to anthropogenic perturbations, accessing the relative importance of biogeochemical processes, emission sources and sinks. The regional climate model WRF-GHG (Weather Research and Forecasting, coupled with GHG module) will be used to simulate the spatial distribution of GHG around the ATTO tower, in Central Amazonia. Model outputs will be compared against in situ observations collected during intensive field experiments (Cloudroot and CAFE-Brazil). Meteorological fields obtained with a global climate model will be used to access changes in GHG concentrations under different climate and land use scenarios. The integration between regional climate models and observational data from the ground stations, aircrafts and remote sensing is key to improve the understanding of the carbon balance in Amazonia and the influence of environmental drivers and anthropogenic forcings. This PhD project is part of two broader research projects: "Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Amazon and Data Analytics and Service System" (GHG) (RCG2I, FAPESP 2020/15230-5) and "Synergistic effects of climate change and land use on carbon source and sink of Amazon forestecosystem" (NSFC-FAPESP 2022/07974-0). (AU)