There are quite a number of conflicting conclusions about inter-annual trends of the monsoon rainfall over South Asia as a result of global warming. Western Ghats, next to Himalayas are the principal watershed areas for the rivers of India. In this study, an attempt has been made to understand the inter-seasonal and inter-annual patterns rainfall over Agumbe – popularly known as the Cheerapunji...

introduction precipitation plays an important role in the global energy and water cycle. it is important for assessment and management of land use, agriculture and hydrology such as flood and drought risk reduction to know about the amount of precipitation reaching the ground water. assessment of climate change and its effects require long-term rainfall analysis in all spatial scales. growing c...

During the period 1970-1999, Rappaport (2000) found that almost 60% of TC-related deaths in the U.S. were due to fresh water floods caused by heavy rainfall. To reduce this statistic, it is important to improve the accuracy of TC rainfall forecasts by examining the spatial distribution of the rain shield about the criculation center of the storm. Previous researchers have investigated TC rainfa...

We used a mathematical transmission model to estimate when ecological drivers of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) transmissibility would need to act in order to produce the observed seasonality of RSV in the Philippines. We estimated that a seasonal peak in transmissibility would need to occur approximately 51 days prior to the observed peak in RSV cases (range 49 to 67 days). We then compared...

This paper looks at differences in spatial and temporal variation of rice yields in China and Brazil. We find that rice yields in China have converged over time and that rice production has become more and more homogeneous. In contrast, rice yields in Brazil have diverged over time, primarily due to variations in upland rice yields. Three hypotheses are put forward to explain the different beha...

By assessing current leaf litter nutrient dynamics, we may be able to predict responses of nutrient cycling in tropical ecosystems to future environmental change. The goal of this study was to assess whether nutrient cycling is related to seasonal variation in rainfall in a wet tropical forest. We examined leaf litter of an old-growth tropical rain forest in N.E. Costa Rica over a 4-year period...

A statistical approach is used to explore the variability of precipitation and meteorological drought in Mexico’s Rı́o Yaqui basin on seasonal-to-decadal timescales. For this purpose, a number of custom datasets have been developed, including a monthly 1900-2004 precipitation index for the Yaqui basin created by merging two gridded land-surface precipitation products, a 350-year tree-ring based ...

Global warming is projected to increase the frequency and intensity of droughts in the Mediterranean region, as well as the occurrence of large fires. Understanding the interactions between drought, fire and plant responses is therefore important. In this study, we present an experiment in which rainfall patterns were modified to simulate various levels of drought in a Mediterranean shrubland o...