This award will support Professor Roger Barry of the University of Colorado-Boulder in collaboration with A. Moreau and M. Perdomo of the Ministerio del Ambiente (MARNR) and R. Andressen of the Universidad de los Andes (ULA) in Merida, Venezuela. The purpose of the collaboration is to extend currently supported work on precipitation regimes in northern South America. By conducting research on long-term climatology and climatic change in Venezuela, the researchers will gain access to a unique geographical setting whose climatology is virtually unknown. More specifically, the PI's intend to study precipitation regimes and their relationship to atmospheric dynamics and topographic forcing, the causes of their interannual variability, and the effects of altitude and topography on precipitation in low latitudes. The U.S. side will contribute their expertise and resources to the collaboration while the Venezuelan investigators will provide access to hydro-meteorological data and assistance from their station networks. The results of this study should provide important information to researchers interested in tropical and global climatology and climatic change.
