The Role of Vegetation, Aerosols and Surface Fluxes for Land-Atmosphere Feedbacks

 A Proposal to the National Science Foundation -- the Climate and Large-Scale Dynamics Program (ATM CLD)

 Principal Investigator: Robert E. Dickinson

Tel: 404-385-1509, Fax: 404-385-1510, Email: robted@eas.gatech.edu

Co-Investigators: Yan Huang and Qing Liu

 Summary

The proposed work will improve understanding of the land-atmosphere coupling, in particular the interactions between soil moisture, vegetation, aerosols, cloud cover and precipitation. Four linked hypothesis will be addressed through observational and modeling studies. They are: i) changing properties of vegetation modify boundary layer cloud cover and precipitation; ii) aerosols connected to the land surface modify boundary layer cloud cover and precipitation; iii) changing land surface energy and water balances modify aerosol sources, cloud cover, and precipitation; and iv) changes in precipitation and cloud cover modify vegetation properties as well as directly modify the land surface energy and water balance. Satellite observed vegetation greenness and surface observed precipitation will be used to establish vegetation feedback on precipitation. The linkage between vegetation, aerosol emission and precipitation will be studied with a coupled climate-dynamic vegetation-aerosol emission model. Land processes that determine the surface energy and water fluxes such as the water stress on vegetation will be investigated and improved in a GCM using observational data.

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