Abstract
Possible Links Between Biomass Burning And The Water Cycle In Northern Sub-Saharan Africa
GC43F-07
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting, 2012 (San Francisco, California, USA, 12/03/2012 - 12/07/2012)
12/2012
Abstract
The northern sub-Saharan African (NSSA) region, bounded on the north and south by the Sahara and the Equator, respectively, and stretching East-West across Africa, is very vulnerable because of the highly active environmental and meteorological processes associated with its unique location and human activities that potentially impact the regional water cycle. Over the years, this region has suffered frequent severe droughts that have caused tremendous hardship and loss of life to millions of its inhabitants due to the rapid depletion of the regional water resources, as exemplified by the dramatic drying of Lake Chad. On the other hand, the NSSA region shows one of the highest biomass-burning rates per unit land area among all regions of the world. Because of the high concentration and frequency of fires in this region, with the associated abundance of heat release and gaseous and particulate smoke emissions, biomass-burning activity is believed to be one of the drivers of the regional carbon and energy cycles, with serious implications for the water cycle. An interdisciplinary research effort sponsored by NASA is presently being focused on the NSSA region, to better understand possible connections between the intense biomass burning observed from satellite year after year across the region and the water cycle, through associated changes in land-cover, albedo, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, emissions, atmospheric processes, precipitation, surface runoff, and groundwater recharge. A combination of remote sensing and modeling approaches is being utilized to investigate these multiple processes to clarify possible links between them. We are finding significant covariance (positive or negative) between them, although we are yet to establish cause-and-effect relationships. In this presentation, we will discuss interesting results as well as the path toward improved understanding of the interrelationships and feedbacks between the water cycle components and the environmental change dynamics due to biomass burning and related processes in the NSSA region.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Possible Links Between Biomass Burning And The Water Cycle In Northern Sub-Saharan Africa
- Creators
- Charles Ichoku - University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyCharles Gatebe - Goddard Space Flight CenterJ LeeJun Wang (Author) - University of Iowa, Chemical and Biochemical EngineeringJohn Bolten - Goddard Space Flight CenterFritz Policelli - Goddard Space Flight CenterEric Wilcox - Desert Research InstituteJimmy Adegoke - Council for Scientific and Industrial ResearchShahid Habib - Goddard Space Flight Center
- Resource Type
- Abstract
- Publication Details
- GC43F-07
- Conference
- American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting, 2012 (San Francisco, California, USA, 12/03/2012 - 12/07/2012)
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 12/2012
- Academic Unit
- Chemical and Biochemical Engineering; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Electrical and Computer Engineering; Physics and Astronomy
- Record Identifier
- 9984585856602771
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