Índices de extremos climáticos e tendências da precipitação anual e sazonal na Amazônia Oriental

Abstract

Based on the daily precipitation and air temperature data from INMET eight meteorological stations over the Pará state, we calculated climate extremes indices through RClimdex statistical methodology in the period 1961-2007. Using monthly precipitation data from 134 ANA/INMET stations in eastern Amazon, we analyzed the annual and seasonal trends in a period of 25 to 37 years (1970-2009) through the nonparametric statistics (Mann-Kendall and Sen's method). Finally, we used deforestation data from PRODES/INPE in the period 2000-2007, in order to analyze the possible influence of deforestation in the precipitation trends particularly for the Pará state. The climate extremes indices related to the daily precipitation showed that the interannual variability of the indices has close relationships with ENSO episodes and phases of the Atlantic dipole. For the temperature indices there was systematic reductions of cold days (TX10p) and systematic increases in minimum temperature of maximum (TXN), percentage of warm nights (TX90p) and the maximum temperature of maximum (TXX). The results of the annual precipitation trends using nonparametric tests showed that the total of 134 stations, about 51% show positive trends and 41% negative trends in eastern Amazon. However, these annual trends "masked" somewhat seasonal trends, which were more diverse and explain the aspects of regional climate variability. For MAM, there were 99 stations (74%) with positive trends, indicating that the amount of rainfall during the main rainy season period has been increasing consistently in the last decade. In DJF, 45 stations (34%) presented positive trends and 78 stations (58%) negative trends. Moreover, in the period comprising the dry season there were seasonal trends predominantly negative, with 84 stations (62%) in JJA and 89 stations (66%) in SON. Therefore, the observational evidence that the precipitation of the dry period is in gradual decline in recent decades supports the hypothesis that deforestation is associated with reduced rainfall on a regional scale, but it is suggested that this occurs on a seasonal time scale.