H199-0012
Impact of Hurricane Vegetation Destruction on the Grand Bahama Weather

Wednesday, 16 December 2020
Poster
Udaysankar S Nair1, Ankur Kumar2,3, Ashlyn Shirey3 and Christopher Hain4, (1)University of Alabama in Huntsville, Department of Atmospheric Science, Huntsville, AL, United States, (2)Purdue University, Department of Agronomy and Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, West Lafayette, IN, United States, (3)University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL, United States, (4)NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, United States
Abstract:
The Grand Bahama Island was affected by category 5 Hurricane Dorian that stalled in the region for two days starting on 2 September 2019. Dorian caused unprecedented destruction on the island. reducing the vegetation cover by 45%. The multi-decadal time series of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) show influence of multiple hurricanes on the vegetation phenology. While changes in NDVI can be seen following the passage of prior hurricanes, drop in NDVI of ~0.23 (41% of long term mean) is the most drastic. We used satellite derived pre and post storm land cover to numerically simulate how the drastic alteration of the surface modified the island weather. We used satellite derived pre and post storm land cover to numerically simulate how the drastic alteration of the surface modified the island weather. Weather Research and Forecast model simulations for October 2019 show that land cover change has caused a consistent reduction in moisture recycling and 25% decrease in rainfall. Simulated area averaged rainfall patterns best agree with corresponding satellite derived estimates in simulation assuming post storm land cover conditions. Based on multi-decadal analysis of NDVI, vegetation impacts on local weather could persist a decade or more.
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