Índices de extremos climáticos de precipitação pluvial e temperatura do ar na região do MATOPIBA-Brasil.

Abstract

The region called MATOPIBA whose expression, created from the initials of the respective component states (Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia) presents areas favorable to agricultural and livestock production. The effects of the intensification of the expansion of agriculture on the environment in this region will possibly imply a future strongly marked by climate change and compromising the sustainability of natural resources, thus contributing to socio-environmental conflicts. This study aims to evaluate potential impacts of climate change on the characteristics of extreme rainfall indices and maximum and minimum air temperatures in the MATOPIBA region - Brazil, considering past and future climate scenarios, as well as agricultural and water risks associated with climate change. The climatic variables temperature and precipitation stand out in studies of detailed analyses of causes and effects of climate change. Extreme weather indices that are based on these variables allow us to understand the observed changes in weather extremes that affect many human and natural systems and their future projections. Thus, indices of climatic extremes and trends were obtained using the RClimDex software, as well as cluster analysis was applied to the maximum values of the simple index of daily precipitation intensity – SDII, obtained for the period from 1950 to 2004, in order to classify homogeneous regions, since obtaining indices of climatic extremes by homogeneous regions will allow the understanding of the spatial distribution for a smaller amount of data without significant loss of information. It can be seen that the results of the indices by homogeneous regions were representative in relation to the values obtained by micro-regions. Considering the results of the indices for the historical series, factor analysis was applied in this study, which proved to be a powerful statistical technique for assessing vulnerability, through which it was possible to identify areas vulnerable to climate change in the region, as well as to define a climate vulnerability index, considering the results obtained. The analysis of climate extremes indices was also addressed considering climate projections of scenarios from the Fifth Report of the IPCC, for each region resulting from the cluster analysis with the purpose of identifying possible impacts of climate change on the characteristics of the indices of detection of climatic extremes.