Collaborative Research: Assessing and Understanding Climate Change in South America

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The observational temperature and precipitation records suggest that several regions of South America are already experiencing the effects of climate change. An overarching goal of this project is to determine whether observed changes in key climate variables, such as precipitation, temperature, and humidity are a result of human activities, related to naturally occurring climate variability, or a combination of both. Given its influential agricultural sector, climate variability and change in South America can have global ramifications. This goal will be accomplished through two tasks. The first task is to assess whether the changes in these key climate variables differ significantly from trends that could arise as a result of naturally occurring climate variability. The extent to which humans have influenced climate over the continent to date will also be quantified. The second task will be to systematically examine mechanisms leading to natural climate variability over South America, including patterns of variability such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation. Using this comprehensive understanding of the natural and anthropogenic influences on observed changes in climate, the ability of current state-of-the-art climate models to reproduce these features in simulations of the past will be evaluated. In the case that a given climate model can simulate observed trends in climate and features of natural climate variability with reasonable skill, confidence in future projections of climate can be boosted. A major goal of this project to develop methods of conveying the multi-dimensional nature of the investigation results in a concise and easily interpretable way to better inform those communities interested in climate information for South America. Furthermore, the approaches and methods used here will be extensible to other regions of the world. Key results of the project will be presented, interpreted, and made publicly available via a user-friendly website to serve both scientific and non-scientific audiences. These results will be communicated throughout the South American climate science and information communities via an email list associated with the World Climate Research Programme's Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX). Additionally, the project will support the professional development of a postdoctoral scientist and a graduate student. All team members will participate in publishing results in peer-reviewed scientific journals and in reporting results at relevant professional conferences and meetings. In all cases, the presentation style will aim to the broad community interested in South American climate science and information.