Análise da variabilidade espaço-temporal da precipitação e focos de calor em vegetação na ilha Hispaniola.

Abstract

Insular or island countries located in Central America and the Caribbean are vulnerable to variability and climate change. This work presents a contribution to climatological studies, particularly of the Hispaniola Antilles of the Caribbean Sea, formed by the countries of the Republic of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, covering an area of 78 thousand km². Based on the analysis of precipitation from the CHIRPS base with high spatial resolution, a bimodal climate pattern was found in Haiti and the Dominican Republic with the first rainfall peak occurring in May and the second in September/October. The dry regime occurs from January to March. The spatial patterns of the climatological maps and the correlation analysis indicated that the seasonal precipitation regimes of the Antilles are directly influenced by the configuration of the SST and the trade winds in the Caribbean Sea over the Atlantic Ocean, with the main maximum of the second semester being explained by the presence warmer TSM (above 29C) and by the cloudiness band associated with ITCZ during its most boreal position. The quantitative assessment of the correlations (simultaneous and lagged) between rainfall data and vegetation indexes and vegetation fires, as well as the integrated analysis of the mapping of these variables over the Hispaniola territory, allowed to establish consistent relationships in the dynamics of climate, vegetation and fires. Dominican Republic has much higher numbers of fires when compared to those in Haiti, with the highest frequency of events taking place from January to April, when the dry regime over the Antilles prevails. Conversely, during peak rainfall in the second half of the year, fires are minimal and are concentrated in the months from August to December. As for the vegetation indices, there is a certain direct relationship with the climatic regime, so that the higher NDVI are observed into regions containing maximum precipitation and vice versa.