Climate change in Brazil: future scenarios classified by Thornthwaite (1948)

Abstract

Climate Classification System (CCS) is an important tool for validating climate change models, subsidizing the characterization of new areas suitable or unfit for agricultural activity according to future climate change scenarios. This study aims to classify the climate of the Brazilian territory in the various climate change scenarios of the IPCC through the Thornthwaite system (1948). We used a 30-year historical series of climatic data of average air temperature (°C) and rainfall (mm), obtained from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resources platform (NASA/POWER). Potential evapotranspiration (ETP) was estimated by the method of Camargo (1971); the climatological water balance (CWB) was calculated by the method of Thornthwaite and Mather (1955), using 100 mm of soil water storage capacity. CWB extracts were combined for classification by Thornthwaite (1948). The scenarios used were based on the IPCC (2014) projections and the study of Pirttioja et al. (2015). The Brazilian territory had an average air temperature of 22.20 °C (± 3.20) °C and annual precipitation of 1987 mm (± 725) mm. The climatic classification of Thornthwaite presented 108 climatic classes for the current scenario with a more significant predominance of the classes ArAʹaʹ, B4rAʹaʹ, and B3rAʹaʹ representing 20.54%, 15.62%, and 9.46% of the Brazilian territory, respectively. The climate class ArAʹaʹ had 39.20% in the North and 14.97% in the Midwest. The South region has a predominance of 24.31% for the class ArBʹ3aʹ. In the Southeast and Northeast, the climate classes B2rBʹ3aʹ and DdBʹ2aʹ represented 14.80% and 15.26% of the regions, respectively. The S5 scenario was considered more favorable to establishing crops, with 48.04% of Brazil represented by the climate class ArAʹaʹ. Furthermore, the most catastrophic scenarios for crops were S3 and S4, promoting Brazil a predominance of classes B3rAʹaʹ in 18.02% and B1rAʹaʹ in 21.04%, respectively, favoring the occurrence of arid and dry climates in large part of the Brazilian territory.

WITHDRAWN: Symbolic representation of district wise climate change scenarios of West Bengal state, India, using Thornthwaite classification scheme

“…Climate classification systems offer multidimensional climate portrayals and have been used in innumerable studies to validate models and/or acquiring scientific evidence of climate change (Manabe and Holloway 1975;Lohmann et al 1993;Kalvova et al 2003;De Castro et al 2007;Williams et al 2007;Jylha et al 2010 It is possible to clearly visualise the considerable climate change magnitude and spatial variability due to diversity of climatic zones (De Castro et al 2007;Jylha et al 2010). De Lima et al (2021) conducted an experiment in which they classified the climate of the Brazilian territory according to the IPCC's diverse climate change scenarios using the Thornthwaite system (1948). Thereby, they were able to validate climate change models and characterise new areas as suitable or unsuitable for agricultural activity in the future.…”