Hydro-climatic and ecological behaviour of the drought of Amazonia in 2005

Abstract

In 2005, southwestern Amazonia experienced the effects of an intense drought that affected life and biodiversity. Several major tributaries as well as parts of the main river itself contained only a fraction of their normal volumes of water, and lakes were drying up. The consequences for local people, animals and the forest itself are impossible to estimate now, but they are likely to be serious. The analyses indicate that the drought was manifested as weak peak river season during autumn to winter as a consequence of a weak summertime season in southwestern Amazonia; the winter season was also accompanied by rainfall that sometimes reached 25% of the climatic value, being anomalously warm and dry and helping in the propagation of fires. Analyses of climatic and hydrological records in Amazonia suggest a broad consensus that the 2005 drought was linked not to El Niñ o as with most previous droughts in the Amazon, but to warming sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean.

Mapping iron-mineralized laterite environments based on textural attributes from MAPSAR image simulation - SAR-R99B (SIVAM/SIPAM) in the Amazon region

“…A very low dielectric constant in dry environments allows longer radar wavelengths to penetrate to greater depth (Werle, 1988). Lateritic crusts have capability to retain high water volume on the rainy seasons, but the area was affected by the strong drought, which occurred in the Amazon region, from November 2004 to the end of 2005 (Marengo et al, 2008).…”

Potential effects of climate change on inundation patterns in the Amazon Basin

“…Already in this decade, three years with extraordinary water amounts took place (Marengo et al, 2008(Marengo et al, , 2011Nobre and De Simone Borma, 2009). The "Core Amazon" (Killeen and Solorzano, 2008) in the north-western part of the Amazon Basin experiences in our simulations most of these changes.…”

Avaliação das Estimativas de Precipitação do Produto 3B43-TRMM do Estado do Amazonas

“…A Bacia Amazônica é um dos principais centros de atividades convectivas na região tropical do planeta, com uma área de cinco milhões de quilômetros quadrados (Ferreira da Costa et al, 1998). Dessa forma, é de extrema importância entender a dinâmica pluviométrica desta região, bem como os mecanismos que organizam e promovem a precipitação e sua relação com o funcionamento da floresta (Molion, 1987;Marengo et al, 2008).…”