La Plata Basin Climate and Hydrology Report

P. Silva Dias

VPM8 – Mexico City - 07 March 2005

      How are droughts and floods in the Plata Basin characterized from a climatological and hydrological point of view?

      How predictable is the regional weather and climate variability and its impact on hydrological, agricultural and social systems of the basin?

      What is the role of global climate change and land use change on regional weather, climate, hydrology and agriculture?

Main Questions

1. To what degree is the basin climatology and hydrology affected by SST anomalies? Conversely, how do the larger scale precipitation and surface winds affect the nearby oceanic circulation? Does the SACZ play an active role, or is it merely responding passively to large-scale changes?

2. How is decadal variability in the tropical Atlantic SSTs linked to precipitation anomalies in the basin, particularly in the northern part (Upper Paraguay and Paraná, Upper Bermejo and Pilcomayo)

3. What are the seasonal variations of the links between anomalies in SST and in climate over the basin?

4. What is the relative importance of local and remote sources of moisture in the basin?

5. Do soil processes play an important role in the basin? In particular, do the large variations in the flooded area of the Pantanal impact and one themselves influenced by the variations in region climatology? (long ‘memory’ – 1y)

To properly answer these questions a number of issues on the climatology and hydrology of the Plata Basin should be addressed:

6. Is there a climatologic impact on the Pantanal area due to the fragile environment and the great variability and persistence of the flooded areas?

7. What determines the near-cyclic variations in the major rivers of the Plata River Basin (Paraná, Paraguay, Uruguay, Negro)?

8. Can the links between near-cycles found in SST and streamflow variations be used to obtain useful probabilistic prediction of river behavior?

9. What are the climatological and hydrological characterization of droughts and floods in the Plata Basin both in time and space?

10. What developments and improvements in hydrologic models are required to better represent the relationships among model parameters and changes in soil use?

11. How predictable is the hydroclimatology variability in the Plata Basin?

12. What are the most limiting factors to adequately address these questions?

13. Do biomass burning aerosols plays any important role in the regional climatology?

LPB accepted as a GEWEX Continental Scale Experiment -2004

What does it mean???

GEWEX Program Strategy • Build on existing programs and data.

• Conduct modeling programs to model all aspects of the hydrologic and energy cycles with evolving fully coupled atmosphere-land-ocean components.

• Make recommendations to space agencies with respect to instruments planned for satellite platforms.

• Conduct pilot studies with international participation encompassing the full range of experimental scales:

• small scale • continental scale • global scale

TECHNICAL/LOGISTICAL CRITERIA CSE

i) The co-operation of a NWP center which has implemented a state-of-the-art atmospheric and surface data assimilation procedure, and will deliver estimates of hydro-meteorological properties in a form directly comparable to observables.

CPTEC – Brazilian Center for

Weather Forecasting and Climate

Research

TECHNICAL/LOGISTICAL CRITERIA

(ii) A commitment of resources and personnel to purse the development of suitable atmospheric-hydrological models, develop an atmospheric atmospheric-hydrological data management and assimilation system, and to conduct an appropriate programme of numerical experimentation and climate change studies.

• GEF Proposal

•Regional instituitions

TECHNICAL/LOGISTICAL CRITERIA

(iii) A regional scientific co-operation mechanism for collecting and managing hydrometeorological data sets, including satellite observations, for supporting and validating the above model development.

TECHNICAL/LOGISTICAL CRITERIA

(iv) A commitment to participate in the international exchange of scientific information and data in conformity with the general practice of WCRP.

•CPTEC commitment – (same as in LBA)

•GEF constraint

TECHNICAL/LOGISTICAL CRITERIA

(v) Interactions with water resource agencies or related groups to better utilize improved continental-scale information to address the assessment of impacts on regional water resources.

•CIC – oversees the process

•Growing participation of individual national institutions/organizations

TECHNICAL/LOGISTICAL CRITERIA

(vi) Contributions to the evaluation of GEWEX global data products.

•Field activities provide opportunity to check remote sensing products agains observations

•Access to hydrometeorological regional data sets

•Facilitate access of regional community to global data sets.

TECHNICAL/LOGISTICAL CRITERIA

(vii) Contributions to CEOP and transferability data bases.

•Early actions of PLATIN: Andes LLJ experiment in 2002-2003

•Most of the field activities planned for 2005 on

• CPTEC commitment –

(as in the LBA case)

• Ongoing activities: Flux

Tower measurements in the

Cerrado and agricultural

Ecossystems)

Conceptual model of the SALLJ physical environment during the wet season. Marengo et al. (2002)

••SALLJ SALLJ characterizationcharacterization

••Theories of SALLJ Theories of SALLJ generation and generation and variability. variability.

••Numerical simulation of Numerical simulation of the South American the South American Monsoon System.Monsoon System.

••SALLJ and precipitation SALLJ and precipitation development.development.

••Links between tropical Links between tropical and subtropical climate and subtropical climate variability.variability.

••Climate variability over Climate variability over South AmericaSouth America

LPB Compliance withGEWEX CSE Technical Requirements

• CPTEC and IRI, both NWP and climate prediction centers, have committed cooperation with LPB. Several national and international sources provide funding for LBP research.

• LPB includes several monitoring and experimental networks (e.g. PACS SONET, SALLJEX), as well as flux towers. A PLATIN Database is available for data storage at UCAR JOSS, which also coordinates data management support.

• LPB’s data policy is inspired by CEOP and used in SALLJEX. Researchers commit to the exchange of scientific information and data in conformity with the general practice of WCRP.

• LPB is contributing to the evaluation of GEWEX global data products by generating in-situ data.

• Models and data bases used in GAPP are been transferred to LPB. Strong collaborations with LBA are anticipated.

www.joss.ucar.edu/platin

OPERATIONAL SITE AT CPTEC: htpp://www.cptec.inpe.br/LPB

A GEF-Supported Project Can Fund Initiatives on LPB Climate and Hydrology

The UNEP, OAS and CIC, with the participation of PLATIN,

are requesting funds to the Global Environmental Facility

(GEF) to support planning and implementation of strategic

actions to be taken by the governments of countries in La

Plata Basin for the environmentally and socially sustainable

economic development of the basin.

Areas specifically targeted are protection and integrated

management of water resources and adaptation to climatic

change and variability.

The request has been allocated Block A and Block B funds.

*CIC: Intergovernmental Coordinating Committee for La Plata Basin

A Framework Strategic Action Plan for La Plata Basin

Requesting Agency: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Local Executing Agency: Intergovernmental Coordinating Committee for La Plata Basin (CIC), in co-operation with water agencies of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay

Executing Agency: Organization of American States (OAS)

Funding Agency: Global Environment Facility (GEF)

Current Status: Preparation phase 11/1/03-4/30/05

Preparation Cost: US $1,376,100 (US $700K GEF Block B; $676K Other Sources, including WMO)

Project Total Cost: GEF has placed $15M on Reserve; Countries and Other Sources may contribute 2:1 for a potential total of US $45M.

Coordinating Group

C. Roberto Mechoso (Coordinador)Vicente Barros (Argentina)

Edgar Montenegro (Bolivia)Pedro Silva Dias (Brasil) Julián Báez (Paraguay)Rafael Terra (Uruguay)

Theme 1

Climate and hydrology review

(V. Barros)

Theme 2

Numerical prediction models

(P. Silva Dias)

Theme 3

Climate and hidrology extremes

(J. Marengo)

Theme 4

Technical bases and ins- trumentation

(W. Baetghen)

LPB Framework

Project(Activity 2a)

Completed 7/30/04

GEF Activity 2b: Implementation Plan

Group 1: Regional climate and hydrological scenarios

Group 2: Land use change and other regional processes

Operational Products:

Group 3: Meteorological and climatological observational and prediction systems

Group 4: Hydrological observational and prediction systems

A Field Experiment in LPB: PLATEX

Scientific Issues

• Strong variability of streamflows on several time scales.

• Relative contributions to variability of climate and land use change are not well known.

• Effecs of aerosols advection from biomas burning from tropical areas are largely unknown.

• Strong contribution of MCS to total precipitation.

• Predictability issue related to observation system:data frequency, location of obs., new systems (profilers, radars, new satellite data…)

Specific objectives of GEF/Phase 2b: Group 1 Regional climate and hydrological scenarios

•To plan, improve and develop climate and hydrology regional in the context of Global Change;

•To plan and develop climate and hydrological modeling to identify and evaluate impact on the hydrological regime due to natural climate variability, climate change and land use change.

•Changes in soil use and other regional processes

• To plan the development of the activities to obtain a global diagnostic of the land use change, future tendencies, implications for the regional climate and hydrology, ecology and social economical system.

Specific objectives of GEF/Phase 2b: Group 2

Land use change and other regional processes

• To contribute to the coordination and integration of the operational systems in the following aspects:

(a) Observation and monitoring(b) Assimilation of conventional and remote

sensing information(c) Use of weather and climate prognostic models

Specific objectives of GEF/Phase 2b: Group 3

Meteorological and climatological observational and prediction systems

•Planing the development of an integrated hydrological prediction scheme in the Plata Basin for different users to:

a) short range forecasting for alert and operation of hydrological longa range forecasting systems for energy generation, agriculture application and navigation

b) identify strategies and procedures to distribute forecasts leading to an integrated management of the water resources of the LPB

c) to establish the legal agreements for the integration of the operational weather, climate and hydrological prediction systems for the LPB

Specific objectives of GEF/Phase 2b: Group 4 Hydrological observational and

prediction systems

Hydroclimatological Prediction Phase 2b:

General Coordination: Dr. Vicente Ricardo Barros

National Coordinators:

Vicente Barros, Argentina; Edgar Montenegro, Bolivia;Pedro Silva Dias, Brazil;Julián Báez, Paraguay;Rafael Terra, Uruguay.

Motivated by GEWEX concern:

LPB and LBA integration

cptec-short.ppt

LBA and LPB• LBA – focus on biosphere-atmosphere

interactions in the Amazon Basin– Fully institutionalized, network of

participants is functioning– Participants are Amazonian countries

with international partners in USA and Europe

– Finishing Phase I - synthesis– Phase II - beginning 2006 – ecosystem -

atmosphere – chemistry coupled models; aerosol-radiation-precipitation issues

– There is funding for towers (14)– S-band Doppler radars, radiosondes and

surface weather stations are being maintained by SIPAM program

– Brazilian funding for research and maintenance of observations, NASA will be funding the synthesis of Phase I, there are ongoing projects with Europe.

• LPB – focus on water resources in the La Plata Basin

– Planning phase – Is taking advantage of already on going

activities to get momentum– Distributed Hydrology Model has been

tested with input from CPTEC models– Super-ensemble of models from different

institutions/countries are being combined for NWP

– Uses networks of PROSUR (IAI) and CLARIS as a basis

– MERCOSUR countries are involved– Implementation plan is being prepared – GEFF funding is in reserve while planning

phase is under way– Data up to now consists of the operational

network of participating countries

CSE Organization

• GHP and VAMOS are encouraging the set up of an organizational structure for the CSE based on strong regional leadership and participation.

• The current activities are conducive to the development of a comprehensive implementation plan for the basin.

– Implementation plan is urgent• Need to define a reference site