Increased dry-season length over southern Amazonia in recent decades and its implication for future climate projection.

ABSTRACT: We have observed that the dry-season length (DSL) has increased over southern Amazonia since 1979, primarily owing to a delay of its ending dates (dry-season end, DSE), and is accompanied by a prolonged fire season. A poleward shift of the subtropical jet over South America and an increase of local convective inhibition energy in austral winter (June-August) seem to cause the delay of the DSE in austral spring (September-November). These changes cannot be simply linked to the variability of the tropical Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Although they show some resemblance to the effects of anthropogenic forcings reported in the literature, we cannot attribute them to this cause because of inadequate representation of these processes in the global climate models that were presented in the Interg

SUBMITTER: Fu R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3831494 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature