Date of Award

1-1-2018

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences

Content Description

1 online resource (ii, xx, 206 pages) : illustrations (some color), color maps.

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Mathias Vuille

Committee Members

Aiguo Dai, Jiping Liu, Justin Minder

Keywords

Climate Change, Ecuador, Elevation-dependent warming, Extreme events, Regional climate model, WRF, Long-range weather forecasts, Climatic changes, Climatic extremes, Global temperature changes

Subject Categories

Atmospheric Sciences | Climate

Abstract

The climate over Ecuador is complex due to several interacting factors, such as its location at the equator, the Andean topography, and several modes of internal variability, including the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), affecting the region. In addition, the rapid increase in greenhouse gas concentrations will continue to affect both the mean state and climate variability in Ecuador over the coming decades. Hence, a thorough understanding of both natural and anthropogenic forcings and how they combine to influence Ecuadorian climate is a necessity for decision-making and implementation of adequate adaptation measures. However, the lack of observational data, both in space and time, severely limits our ability to study climate changes that affect Ecuador today. Employing a high-resolution regional climate model (RCM) can help to better diagnose the mechanisms and feedbacks that lead to climate changes and how they differ in space and time, as long as the model is able to adequately reproduce what is observed in the limited observational data.

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