DARWIN Dynamics of precipitation in transition: The water source for the Galapagos Archipelago under climate change [funded by DFG]
Project staff:
Prof. Dr. Jörg Bendix
Dr. Nazli Turini
Annika Hergl
Lars Ringelhäuser
Abstract:
The Galápagos archipelago is well known for its unique and high endemic biodiversity, which attracted many bioscientists since Darwin published his theory on the "Natural Selection". At the same time, the knowledge on the climate of the archipelago in space and time is rather poor. Thus, it is completely uncertain how climate change might impact the unique biodiversity of the archipelago. Since there are hardly any aquifers on the islands, the ecosystem and the Galápagos population are completely depending on atmospheric water supply from rainfall. Galápagos rainfall dynamics in time and space, however, is hardly understood. This particularly holds for impacts of extreme events on precipitation, such as ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) that potentially surrogates future climate change conditions. Essential to know is how climate change will impact rainfall totals and distribution of the two major rainfall types: warm season convective rains and cold season stratiform Garúa. The latter is hypothesized to be the major water source for the archipelago, particularly threatened by climate change.
Project website: http://www.darwin-rain.org/
Publications and poster presentations:
2023 - Zander, S.; Turini, N.; Ballari, D.; Bayas López, S.D.; Celleri, R.; Delgado Maldonado, B.; Orellana-Alvear, J.; Schmidt, B.; Scherer, D. & Bendix, J. (2023): The Spatio-Temporal Cloud Frequency Distribution in the Galapagos Archipelago as Seen from MODIS Cloud Mask Data. Atmosphere 14(8), 1225.
- Ballari, D.; Vilches-Blázquez, L.M.; Orellana-Samaniego, M.L.; Salgado-Castillo, F.; Ochoa-Sánchez, A.; Graw, V.; Turini, N. & Bendix, J. (2023): Satellite Earth Observation for Essential Climate Variables Supporting Sustainable Development Goals: A Review on Applications. Remote Sensing 15(11), 2716.
