Implementing Agency:
Department For International Development (LACAD)

Managing Institute:
Institute of Hydrology (IH)

Contractor:
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)

Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura (CENA)

Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA)

Project Code: 087-502-002	Start Date: 01/02/1990	End Date: 31/03/1996
Commitment: £3,057,700	Status: Completed	Type of Funding: Bilateral - TC

Project Background:
The preferred means of investigating the climatic change which may be associated with the large scale deforestation of Amazonia is through computer models of the atmosphere usually referred to as General Circulation Models (GCMs). Presently published forecasts of such change use GCMs which are uncalibrated and unvalidated, and therefore lack the credibility required for informed development decisions. A pioneering Anglo-Brazilian study in the early 1980s provided measurements of the forest/atmosphere interaction for undisturbed rainforest in central Amazonia (Shuttleworth et al, 1984 Shuttleworth 1988). These data have subsequently been used to calibrate the hydrological submodels in GCMs. In consequence, a worthwhile improvement is to be expected in the predictive accuracy of model forecasts in the near future. Such model predictions will even then, however, lack sufficient credibility to resolve contention between developers and conservationists because of outstanding weaknesses in GCM formulation, and in their calibration and validation. The most urgent requirement is for observational data to provide calibration of hydrological submodels for cleared forest and data to validate model predictions of the changes in near surface climate associated with deforestation particularly the change in surface radiation balance. This is a collaborative project between the Institute of Hydrology and three institutions in Brazil, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura (CENA) and Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA), which will provide the experimental data to satisfy these needs and foster their use in GCM prediction of Amazonian deforestation.

Project Objectives:
To improve the accuracy and credibility of computer model predictions (the regional circulation model) of the climate consequences of large scale Amazonian deforestation by providing a calibration of the land/atmosphere interaction for cleared forest sites.

Intended Outputs:
New calibrated GCM submodels of land/atmosphere interaction for cleared forest areas of Amazonia Calibrated GCM predictions of changes in local near surface climate associated with Amazonian deforestation Mid-term review report