Simulating the Amazon Forest Atmospheric Flow during an El Nino episode

In October 2023, during an intense El Niño phenomenon, the Amazon region in Brazil experienced unusually high temperatures associated with a severe drought that impacted the local population, particularly Indigenous and riverside communities, who faced challenges in accessing water resources. The high temperatures and dry conditions also contributed to an increase in wildfires, affecting a significant portion of the Brazilian Amazon. Despite the importance of understanding the dynamics of the atmospheric flow above and within the forest, the Amazon is one of the most challenging regions for both mesoscale and microscale models. In this study, the Parallelized Large Eddy Simulation Model (PALM) is coupled with two mesoscale models: the MOLOCH model and the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. A day in October 2023 with high solar radiation and low cloud cover was chosen as a case study to simulate at high resolution the temperature and water vapor vertical profiles above and within the canopy. The model output will be compared to tower anemometric and scalar measurements collected at 19 vertical levels (from 5 to 316 meters) at the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory.