Return to search

Amazon Forest Response to Changes in Rainfall Regime: Results from an Individual-Based Dynamic Vegetation Model

The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest in the world, and thus plays a major role on global water, energy, and carbon cycles. However, it is still unknown how the Amazon forest will respond to the ongoing changes in climate, especially droughts, which are expected to become more frequent. To help answering this question, in this thesis I developed and improved the representation of biophysical processes and photosynthesis in the Ecosystem Demography model (ED-2.2), an individual-based land ecosystem model. I also evaluated the model biophysics against multiple data sets for multiple forest and savannah sites in tropical South America. Results of this comparison showed that ED-2.2 is able to represent the radiation and water cycles, but exaggerates heterotrophic respiration seasonality. Also, the model generally predicted correct distribution of biomass across different areas, although it overestimated biomass in subtropical savannahs. / Earth and Planetary Sciences

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:harvard.edu/oai:dash.harvard.edu:1/11744438
Date25 February 2014
CreatorsLongo, Marcos
ContributorsWofsy, Steven C., Moorcroft, Paul R
PublisherHarvard University
Source SetsHarvard University
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
Rightsopen

Page generated in 0.0018 seconds