Use of MODIS and GOES imagery to help delineate the distribution of cloud forests along the eastern Andean slopes

The environment with the greatest biodiversity from a global standpoint is that known as the tropical Andes “hotspot”, which is a broad region along the eastern slopes of the Andes in South America. One of the subregions with the highest diversity within this region is the cloud forest, a region of very high cloudiness and high annual precipitation. Mapping the cloud forest and surrounding environments has been of high priority because resources for conservation are limited and conservation organizations and governmental agencies need to know what areas should receive highest priority for protection efforts.

Work associated with the South American Low-level Jet Experiment (SALLJEX) carried out in 2002-3 led to the use of GOES imagery to develop composites of visible and IR imagery for describing the mean cloudiness along the eastern slopes of the Andes. More recently MODIS imagery has been used to describe cloudiness at even higher resolution. Together, these imagery sources provide clues as to the distribution of cloudiness that can be related to cloud forest environment. In addition, dry canyon environments, the locus of many geographically-restricted species, can likewise be readily described from the cloudiness composites.

The GOES and MODIS cloudiness composites will be shown, and some limitations of inferring cloud forest locations and dry canyon habitat from the imagery will be discussed. The potential for this technique to be applied to other areas will be mentioned.