Project Details
Projekt
DynAmics of PRecipitation in transition: The Water source for the Galapagos ArchIpelago under Climate Change - DARWIN
Subject Area
Physical Geography
Term
since 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 455480427
The Galápagos islands are primarily known for its unique and high endemic biodiversity. As a UNESCO World Heritage site, the islands are classified, among others, as one of the 137 “most irreplaceable protected areas” of the world. However, local and global environmental changes meanwhile threatens the islands to such a great extent that the archipelago was recently included in the list of “World Heritage in Danger”. One of the major threats is climate change, particularly critical changes in atmospheric water services (precipitation). Although Galápagos is situated in the centre of the ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) phenomenon, to date the knowledge on precipitation of the archipelago in space and time, including effects of ENSO extremes and climate change is rather poor. The main reason is an almost lacking operational weather and climate observation system and, in consequence, hardly any climatic research activities in the past. The grand question for the crucial water supply of ecosystems and people is, if the cold season Garúa precipitation (drizzle and occult precipitation), which is supposed to be the main atmospheric water source of the archipelago, is failing under climate change. The assumed reason is an increase of El Niño-like warm season conditions in future. To answer this grand question, a complete understanding of the complex precipitation dynamics in relation to (i) topography (e.g. altitude, luff-lee effects), (ii) global sea surface temperature- and atmospheric circulation pattern as well as (iii) local breeze systems is urgently required. Consequently, the main aim of the project is to conduct an in-depth analysis of the spatio-temporal occurrence and dynamics of the different precipitation regimes and types: (i) warm season orographic-convective rainfall and (ii) cold season Garúa precipitation. This will be conducted by (i) installing for the first time a network of automatic weather stations along E-W and luff-lee height transects in the archipelago, (ii) by developing and applying satellite retrievals for the three relevant precipitation types, mainly base on the novel GOES-ABI (Advanced Baseline Imager) data, and (iii) by generating a WRF-based high resolution “Galapagos Archipelago Refined” analysis (GAR). The generated time series from the satellite retrievals and the GAR will finally be used to spatially explicit analyze potential climate change effects by using El Niño events and El Niño-like conditions as a surrogate of future climatic conditions.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
International Connection
Ecuador
Cooperation Partners
Dr. Daniela Ballari; Dr. Rolando Célleri
