The performance of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) rainfall algorithms was investigated from December 1997 to November 2000 over South America and adjoining oceans. The Precipitation Radar (PR) and the TRMM MicrowaveImager (TMI) algorithms are compared with the rainfall estimates of the Geostationary Environmental Satellite (GOES) Precipitation Index (GPI), the gauge analysis of GlobalPrecipitation Climatology Center (GPCC), and an additional dataset (GAUGES) that includes conventional and automatic rain gauges, mainly located over Brazil. The general pattern of PR tends to have qualitative good agreement with the climatologies. However, discrepancies are observed for regional, monthly, and seasonal averages. There appears to be a tendency of PR underestimating ( -10%) large rainfall in the tropics and overestimating (18%) in the subtropics compared to GAUGES. TMI (GPI) estimates are generally high in both tropics and subtropics, where the differences from GAUGES are 13% (12%) in the tropics and 42% (21%) in the subtropics. GPCC is 4 and 6% higher than GAUGES in the tropics and subtropics, respectively. High rainfall estimated by the PR in southeast South America could be related to sampling problems, where PR overestimates rainfall from large MCSs, which contributeup to 80% of the total rainfall. Statistical tests of the confidence intervals have shown that small variations in sampling MCSs can lead to discrepancies in the rainfall estimates of PR compared to other algorithms. The characteristics of the precipitation features (PFs) and the diurnal cycle of rainfall were separated by regions to examine the regional differences in the continent and surrounding oceans. Although the largest numbers of PFs with MCSs were observed in the continental tropics, the most intense systems were observed in the Plata Basin, western Colombia, and Gulf of Panama. The diurnal cycle of rainfall over land often has a double peak, one related to an afternoon maximum of sub-MCS PFs and one related toa night-early-morning peak of MCS rain. The diurnal cycle of the rainfall from PFs with MCSs was shown to vary significantly among the regions in South America due todifferent physiographical and meteorological characteristics. Over the oceanic regions the diurnal cycle of rainfall typically has a weak morning maximum agreeing with previous studies, with the notable exception of the Gulf of Panama, which has the largest amplitude of the diurnal cycle among the regions considered. There, the large-amplitude diurnal cycle is vividly dominated by MCSs forming in the late evening and lasting until early afternoon.

This book looks at the circulation features of the Southern Hemisphere, both for the atmosphere and oceans. It includes observational techniques based on satellites, anchored and drifting buoys, and the research carried out at research stations in the Southern Hemisphere. The book was originally published in 1972 by the American Meteorological Society. It has been revised and updated in 1999, following the expansion of research bases and the development of research in the region at the time.

South America is a unique place where a number of past climate archives are ava- able from tropical to high latitude regions. It thus offers a unique opportunity to explore past climate variability along a latitudinal transect from the Equator to Polar regions and to study climate teleconnections. Most climate records from tropical and subtropical South America for the past 20,000 years have been interpreted as local responses to shift in the mean position and intensity of the InterTropical Conv- gence Zone due to tropical and extratropical forcings or to changes in the South American Summer Monsoon. Further South, the role of the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds on global climate has been highly investigated with both paleodata and coupled climate models. However the regional response over South America during the last 20,000 years is much more variable from place to place than pre- ously thought. The factors that govern the spatial patterns of variability on millennial scale resolution are still to be understood. The question of past natural rates and ranges of climate conditions over South America is therefore of special relevance in this context since today millions of people live under climates where any changes in monsoon rainfall can lead to catastrophic consequences.

Statistical Methods in the Atmospheric Sciences, Third Edition, explains the latest statistical methods used to describe, analyze, test, and forecast atmospheric data. This revised and expanded text is intended to help students understand and communicate what their data sets have to say, or to make sense of the scientific literature in meteorology, climatology, and related disciplines. In this new edition, what was a single chapter on multivariate statistics has been expanded to a full six chapters on this important topic. Other chapters have also been revised and cover exploratory data analysis, probability distributions, hypothesis testing, statistical weather forecasting, forecast verification, and time series analysis. There is now an expanded treatment of resampling tests and key analysis techniques, an updated discussion on ensemble forecasting, and a detailed chapter on forecast verification. In addition, the book includes new sections on maximum likelihood and on statistical simulation and contains current references to original research. Students will benefit from pedagogical features including worked examples, end-of-chapter exercises with separate solutions, and numerous illustrations and equations. This book will be of interest to researchers and students in the atmospheric sciences, including meteorology, climatology, and other geophysical disciplines. - Accessible presentation and explanation of techniques for atmospheric data summarization, analysis, testing and forecasting - Many worked examples - End-of-chapter exercises, with answers provided

A book focused solely on Andean Cloud Forests (ACF) has never been published. ACF are high biodiversity ecosystems in the Neotropics with a large proportion of endemic species, and are important for the hydrology of entire regions. They provide water for large parts of the Amazon basin, for example. Here I take advantage of my many years working in ACF in Ecuador, to edit this book that contains the following sections: (1) ACF over space and time, (2) Hydrology, (3) Light and the Carbon cycle, (4) Soil, litter, fungi and nutrient cycling, (5) Plants, (6) Animals, and (7) Human impacts and management. Under this premise, international experts contributed chapters that consist of reviews of what is known about their topic, of what research they have done, and of what needs to be done in the future. This work is suitable for graduate students, professors, scientists, and researcher-oriented managers.

The Physical Geography of South America, the eighth volume in the Oxford Regional Environments series, presents an enduring statement on the physical and biogeographic conditions of this remarkable continent and their relationships to human activity. It fills a void in recent environmental literature by assembling a team of specialists from within and beyond South America in order to provide an integrated, cross-disciplinary body of knowledge about this mostly tropical continent, together with its high mountains and temperate southern cone. The authors systematically cover the main components of the South American environment - tectonism, climate, glaciation, natural landscape changes, rivers, vegetation, animals, and soils. The book then presents more specific treatments of regions with special attributes from the tropical forests of the Amazon basin to the Atacama Desert and Patagonian steppe, and from the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Pacific coasts to the high Andes. Additionally, the continents environments are given a human face by evaluating the roles played by people over time, from pre-European and European colonial impacts to the effects of modern agriculture and urbanization, and from interactions with El Niño events to prognoses for the future environments of the continent.

Amazonian soils are almost universally thought of as extremely forbidding. However, it is now clear that complex societies with large, sedentary populations were present for over a millennium before European contact. Associated with these are tracts of anomalously fertile, dark soils termed ‘terra preta’ or dark earths. These soils are presently an important agricultural resource within Amazonia and provide a model for developing long-term future sustainability of food production in tropical environments. The late Dutch soil scientist Wim Sombroek (1934-2003) was instrumental in bringing the significance of these soils to the attention of the world over four decades ago. Wim saw not only the possibilities of improving the lives of small holders throughout the world with simple carbon based soil technologies, but was an early proponent of the positive synergies also achieved in regards to carbon sequestration and global climatic change abatement. Wim’s vision was to form a multidisciplinary group whose members maintained the ideal of open collaboration toward the attainment of shared goals. Always encouraged and often shaped by Wim, this free association of international scholars termed the “Terra Preta Nova” Group came together in 2001 and has flourished. This effort has been defined by enormous productivity. Wim who is never far from any of our minds and hearts, would have loved to share the great experience of seeing the fruits of his vision as demonstrated in this volume.