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55 - The impact of deforestation on orographic cloud formation in a complex tropical environment

from Part VI - Effects of climate variability and climate change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2011

By
U. S. Nair ,
D. K. Ray ,
R. O. Lawton ,
R. M. Welch ,
R. A. Pielke Sr.  and
J. Calvo-Alvarado
Edited by
L. A. Bruijnzeel ,
F. N. Scatena  and
L. S. Hamilton
U. S. Nair
Affiliation:
University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA
D. K. Ray
Affiliation:
University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA
R. O. Lawton
Affiliation:
University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA
R. M. Welch
Affiliation:
University of Alabama in Huntsville, USA
R. A. Pielke Sr.
Affiliation:
Colorado State University, USA
J. Calvo-Alvarado
Affiliation:
Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica, Costa Rica
L. A. Bruijnzeel
Affiliation:
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
F. N. Scatena
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
L. S. Hamilton
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

ABSTRACT

Ecological changes observed in cloud forests in the Monteverde area, northern Costa Rica, including disappearance of anuran populations and expansion of bird and bat ranges to higher elevations, have been linked to an increasing trend in dry-season mist-free days. Prior studies suggest that this trend may be influenced by both large-scale processes of climate change and regional-scale changes in land cover. Preliminary investigations exploring the impact of land use on cloud formation indicated that drying and warming of boundary layer air in response to lowland deforestation leads to increased cloud base heights. In the present study, numerical model experiments utilizing realistic land-use scenarios and atmospheric conditions are used to further explore the impact of land-use change on orographic cloud formation. The Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) was used to simulate orographic cloud formation during the time period of 1–14 March 2003 in the Monteverde region for pristine, current, and future land-use scenarios. The simulations were initiated from the same atmospheric conditions and subject to similar lateral boundary conditions. Comparisons against observations showed that RAMS was capable of realistically simulating the nature of orographic cloud formation and boundary-layer thermodynamics. Numerical simulations indicated that deforestation in the lowlands and adjacent pre-montane areas results in an increase in average cloud base height and a consequent decrease in the areal extent of montane forests immersed in clouds. In the current and future land-use scenarios, warmer and drier air is found over the lowlands and pre-montane areas. […]

Type
Chapter
Information
Tropical Montane Cloud Forests
Science for Conservation and Management
 , pp. 538 - 548
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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