| dc.description.abstract | Recent studies have shown profound effects of deforestation on decreased
precipitation and evapotranspiration. This can be attributed to the concept of green
water, which is the volume of water stored in soils and interacting with plants via
evapotranspiration. The Permian-Triassic (P-T) extinction had the most profound impact
on plant life of any mass extinction, with many large forests being replaced by
herbaceous lycophytes. The aim of this study is to explore a large-scale extreme
example of deforestation by analyzing the green water variables of the Permian-Triassic
extinction linked to the global loss of Glossopteris and related forests. When exploring
this event, two main questions are focused on; how did the global distribution of green
water differ after the extinction, and how could these alterations have affected global
climate at the time? To answer these questions, variables from various studies are
transferred into ArcPro and used to make first estimates of seasonal evapotranspiration,
latent heat flux, and mean residence time before and after the P-T extinction. Results
show a decrease in all water balance variables after the P-T and a correlation between
areas of higher decrease and pre-extinction forests. When evapotranspiration change is
converted to a change in sensible heat, a global change of approximately 2oC is
observed, accounting for approximately one fifth of the post-extinction temperature
increase.
Keywords: Water Balance, Permian-Triassic Extinction, Evapotranspiration,
Deforestation, Sensible Heat | en_US |
