Extreme drought events over Amazon basin: the perspective from regional reconstruction of South American hydroclimate

In less than two decades large areas of the Amazon Basin have experienced severe droughts, namely during 1998, 2005, 2010 and 2015. Due to their several social, economic and environmental impacts there is an increased demand in understanding the behavior of such extreme events in the region. In that regard, regional models instead of the general circulation models provide a promising strategy to generate more detailed climate information of extreme events, seeking better representation of physical processes. In such context, the Satellite-enhanced Regional Downscaling for Applied Studies (SRDAS) product has been used in the analysis of South American hydroclimate, with hourly to monthly outputs from January 1998 to near present. Accordingly, this research focuses on the analyses of recent extreme drought events in the years of 2005 and 2010 in the Amazon Basin, using the SRDAS monthly means of near-surface temperature and relative humidity, precipitation and four-level integrated soil moisture fields. Results from this analysis corroborate spatial and temporal patterns found in previous studies on extreme drought events in the region, displaying the distinctive features of the 2005 and 2010 drought events.