Research project

 The Amazon Basin plays key roles in carbon and water cycles, climate change, atmospheric chemistry, and biodiversity. It has already been significantly altered by human activities, and more far-reaching changes are expected to occur in the coming decades. Therefore, it is essential to establish long-term measurement sites that provide a basic record of current climatic, biogeochemical, and atmospheric conditions and that will be operated in the coming decades to monitor changes in the Amazon region as human disturbances increase in the future. As a result, studies about the dynamics and coupling mechanisms of turbulent flows between the biosphere and the atmosphere in these environments are important to understand the functioning of vegetation during different seasons, to provide subsidies that will contribute to improve management, sustainability, mitigation, and adaptation of these ecosystems in the face of climate change. In this way, the present project aims to determine and characterize the structure, variability, and dynamics of the planetary boundary layer, through its turbulent flows of energy and mass to an area of preserved forest in central Amazon, at the ATTO experimental site. Investigating the dynamics of turbulent kinetic energy, in its components and budget. The project will be carried out using observational micrometeorological data and remote sensors installed at the ATTO experimental site in central Amazon within the Uatumã Sustainable Development Reserve. As well, numerical simulations will be carried out from the PALM model, to analyze the dynamics of turbulent flows and their components, temporal variation of these flows, which are not commonly measured due to logistical and budgetary difficulties of performing continuous measurements in remote areas.