Informations et ressources scientifiques
sur le développement des zones arides et semi-arides

Titre : Dinámica espacio-temporal de la relación entre el clima y el funcionamiento de los ecosistemas en Patagonia Norte

Auteur : Bianchi, Emilio

Université de soutenance : Universidad Nacional del Comahue

Grade : Doctor en Biologia 2016

Résumé partiel
This doctoral dissertation is organized in seven chapters. Chapter 1 provides the theoretical framework and the main goals of this thesis. In Chapter 2, 218 and 114 precipitation and temperature records, respectively, were compiled from different governmental and private institutions to develop a gridded climatic data base across northern Patagonia. Based on a co-kriging methodology, these precipitation and temperature records were interpolated into 20 x 20 km-resolution grids covering northern Patagonia from 63º to 75º W longitude (from Atlantic to Pacific coast) and from 35º to 45º S latitude. These new grids (Northern Patagonia Climate Grids, NPCG) represent spatial variations of both temperature and precipitation fields in a more realistic manner than other global climate grids currently available for the region. The performance of NPCG was contrasted with other global climate grids commonly used in northern Patagonia. This work has already been published in an international, indexed journal (DOI : 10.1007/s13351-015-5058-y). In Chapter 3, spatial and temporal variations in temperature and precipitation, based on NPCG (chapter 2) were analyzed, along with their relationships with large-scale climate forcings. The dominant modes of spatial and temporal variability in temperature and precipitation were determined by applying a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to the gridded data sets. Once that the main patterns of temperature and precipitation variability were identified, they were compared with large-scale (continental, hemispheric to global) climatic drivers. Overall, the PCA analyses of the temperature and precipitation grids identified four different patterns of spatio-temporal variability in northern Patagonia. The northwestern Patagonia pattern shows the classical features related to the Mediterranean climate across Central Chile and the adjacent Cordillera de los Andes. The pattern associated with the cold semiarid climate prevails in the eastern and northeastern sectors of northern Patagonia.

Présentation (CONICET)

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