Les types de climats annuels au Brésil : une application de la classification de Köppen de 1961 à 2015

Abstract

International audienceThis article proposes to use the Köppen classification to define « Annual Climate Types » (ACT) for a set of 208 stations, representative of the climatic diversity of Brazil. The average monthly temperature and precipitation data for the period 1961-2015 allow to established the frequency of ACTs for each station. The statistical and cartographic treatment of this information makes it possible to define the limits of the climates of Brazil: here we apply the concepts of « strong nuclei », defined as the regions where the ACT are systematically or mostly the same, and « transition areas », i.e. regions where there is a great diversity of ACT. This approach allows us to propose a detailed study of the transitions between the tropical climates types (mainly Aw, Am and Af) and those of the south, subtropical and temperate (Cwa and Cfa in particular) and discuss these climatic limits

Climate change evidence in Brazil from Köppen's climate annual types frequency

“…Nevertheless, the density of stations remains lower in the north, notably the State of Amazonas with 23 stations for 1,571 million km 2 , than in the south–east or the south: 13 stations for 282,000 km 2 in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, for example (see Figure for localization of Brazilian States in Appendix ). The distribution of the stations by altitude classes of the country is also satisfactory with a slight overrepresentation of the stations located at less than 50 m above sea level, which is linked to the large number of coastal stations in the east of the country, historically the oldest populated area (Dubreuil et al ., ).…”

“…The stations for which the most frequent ACT corresponds to the average climate type of Köppen are the majority, as is the case for 169 of them, that is, almost 76% of the stations! For 13 of them (6.3%) the climate of Köppen represents even 100% of ACT, every time the type Aw (Dubreuil et al ., ). However, for a significant number of stations (24%, almost a quarter), the most frequent ACT does not correspond to the average Köppen climate.…”

“…Nearly 350 series were collected but several series had to be eliminated because of too large gaps or major discontinuities detected following statistical homogeneity tests of series breaks (see details in Delahaye et al, 2015 andDubreuil et al, 2017). Afterwards, 208 stations were selected with a deliberate choice to favour a homogeneous coverage of the Brazilian territory in order to compensate for the underrepresentation of data in the west and north of the country, where the density of available stations is significantly low.…”

“…In that sense, the classification of W. Köppen has already been applied by some authors to define these ACT in the northwest of Argentina (Planchon and Rosier, ) or in France (Quénol et al ., ; Eveno et al ., ). More recently, ACTs based on the Köppen classification have been used to show the diversity of regional situations in Brazil (Dubreuil et al ., ). This approach made it possible to propose a new cartographic synthesis of the climates of Brazil by distinguishing the strong nuclei, that is all the stations belonging most frequently to a given type, and the transition areas, corresponding to the stations which, depending on the year, different ACT could be observed.…”

Intensity of Urban Heat Islands in Tropical and Temperate Climates

“…Rennes is located in the Köppens' type Cfb, the most common of French mean climate type [30]: except the Mediterranean climate of the south of the country and those close to the ocean, the climate of Rennes is typical of the French climates of inland regions [31]. Presidente Prudente is also located in the Brazilian Köppen's most common mean type: indeed, the Aw type is the most frequent one in the interior of the country and especially in the south-east, the most populous part of Brazil [32,33]. To be representative in terms of urbanization and climate types, these cities were selected for a bilateral comparative project funded by both France and Brazil research agencies (see acknowledgments).…”