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SEMINAR: CWR Seminar: Impact of historical land-cover change on cold fronts in SWWA

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Today's date is Friday, March 29, 2024
CWR Seminar: Impact of historical land-cover change on cold fronts in SWWA Other events...
The south-west of Western Australia (SWWA) has been experiencing a warming and drying trend since the 1970s. This has led to a wide array of research on the likely causes of this decline which can be broadly classified into two major categories. The first is that the decline in rainfall is directly linked to changes in the large scale synoptic features of the southern hemisphere such as patterns of mean sea level pressure and sea surface temperatures. The second school of thought is that land-cover change via the large-scale clearing of native vegetation for agriculture in SWWA has altered the boundary layer dynamics of the region and can explain at least part of the observed decline in rainfall. Although most of the rainfall in the region is brought about by cloud bands and cold-fronts, no study has explicitly focussed on the interactions of these systems with the land surface. Accordingly, this seminar investigates the impact of historical land-cover change on cold fronts in SWWA. Frontal simulations are carried out using the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System and the model is evaluated against high resolution atmospheric soundings as well as station data and gridded rainfall analyses. Sensitivity tests are carried out with pre-European settlement vegetation cover and it is found that land-cover change results in a decrease in total frontal precipitation through a decrease in turbulent kinetic energy, vertical wind velocities, and vertically integrated moisture convergence, and an increase in wind speed within the lower boundary layer. The results of this study are discussed within the context of the broader debate surrounding this highly topical issue.
Speaker(s) Jatin Kala, School of Environmental Science, Murdoch University
Location Blakers Lecture Theatre, Ground Floor, Mathematics Building, University of Western Australia
Contact Gillian Lester <[email protected]>
URL http://www.cwr.uwa.edu.au/news/event.php
Start Wed, 25 May 2011 16:00
End Wed, 25 May 2011 17:00
Submitted by Gillian Lester <[email protected]>
Last Updated Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:59
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