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Extreme Seasonal Climate Variations in the Amazon Basin: Droughts and Floods

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Interactions Between Biosphere, Atmosphere and Human Land Use in the Amazon Basin

Part of the book series: Ecological Studies ((ECOLSTUD,volume 227))

Abstract

The last 10 years have featured intense climate-hydrological extremes in the Amazon region: 2005, 2009, 2010, 2012–2013, and 2014–2015 leading to great impacts, such as large-scale droughts and floods, some of them being classified as ‘once-in-a-century’ events. Historical records show previous droughts in 1926, 1964, 1980, 1983, and 1998 and floods in 1953, 1988, and 1989. These events have been linked to natural climate variability and they impact on natural and human systems. Main cities in the Amazon region were flooded or were isolated by the extremely low river levels during the droughts. Model projections suggest that such extremes could be more frequent/intense in the future and that human activities, mainly in the form of land use change leading to increases in greenhouse gas concentration, may aggravate such extremes and make the impacts on the populations stronger. In this chapter, we review climate-hydrological extremes in a historical context, assessing observed trends, projected climate change scenarios, and the likelihood and uncertainties inherent to those scenarios.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the Rede-CLIMA, the National Institute of Science and Technology for Climate Change funded by CNPq Grant Number 573797/2008-0 and FAPESP Grants 2008/57719-9, FAPESP-NERC 2011/51843-2, and FAPESP-GO AMAZON 2013/50538-7. ERW’s contribution to this study was supported by the NASA TRMM program, under the direction of Dr. Ramesh Kakar.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN), Rodovia Dutra km 40, 12630-000, Cachoeira Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil

    José A. Marengo & Wagner R. Soares

  2. Parsons Laboratory, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Earle R. Williams

  3. Earth System Science Center, National Institute for Space Research (CCST INPE), Rodovia Dutra km 40, 12630-000, Cachoeira Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil

    Lincloln M. Alves & Daniel A. Rodriguez

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  1. José A. Marengo
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  2. Earle R. Williams
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  3. Lincloln M. Alves
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  4. Wagner R. Soares
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  5. Daniel A. Rodriguez
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Correspondence to José A. Marengo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biologia Vegetal, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, Brazil

    Laszlo Nagy

  2. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia, Manaus, Brazil

    Bruce R. Forsberg

  3. Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Paulo Artaxo

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Marengo, J.A., Williams, E.R., Alves, L.M., Soares, W.R., Rodriguez, D.A. (2016). Extreme Seasonal Climate Variations in the Amazon Basin: Droughts and Floods. In: Nagy, L., Forsberg, B., Artaxo, P. (eds) Interactions Between Biosphere, Atmosphere and Human Land Use in the Amazon Basin. Ecological Studies, vol 227. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-49902-3_4

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