Influência do tipo de superfície na densidade de ocorrência de raios sobre áreas da Amazônia Oriental

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyze the relationship between the occurrence of lightning over different types of surfaces in selected areas situated in the eastern part of the Amazon Region during the period of July 2008 to November 2010. The studies were conducted in 8 areas, located in the State of Pará, Brazil. The studied areas feature a particular type of surface with homogeneous character. The lightning data were obtained from the database of the STARNET lightning detection network. Rainfall data were collected through 80 weather stations of the National Water Agency - ANA and the National Institute of Meteorology - INMET, while data classification of the types of surfaces were obtained from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - IBGE. The results showed that different types of surfaces have contribute a significantly in occurrence frequency of lightning; lightning vary depending on seasonality and over the months during the year, with higher averages of correlated events with the period of maximum rainfall; the occurrence of lightning varies in time function, where both the rainy season and in the dry season the occurrences of these events tend to happen during the period between 14:00 UTC (15:00 UTC to dry season) and 22:00 UTC with major peaks observed in the rainy season. Also observed a lack of uniformity in the incident of lightning and precipitation on and between the same selected areas. Therefore, this study provides qualitative evidence of the importance of the types of surfaces and their influence over the observed occurrence of lightning.