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| Author(s): |
Ana Carolina Nóbile Tomaziello
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto Astronômico e Geofísico (IAG/SBD) |
| Defense date: | 2010-03-22 |
| Examining board members: |
Adilson Wagner Gandu;
Pedro Leite da Silva Dias;
Dirceu Luís Herdies
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| Advisor: | Adilson Wagner Gandu |
| Abstract | |
During austral summer, several regions of Brazil, as Southeast, portions of South and Northeast Regions and central Brazil, suffer periods of intense precipitation, generally associated with South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ), which causes serious economic and social problems in those regions. Notwithstanding, the general objective of this work was to study the main features of SACZ, and in terms of numerical modeling, it intended to study the influences of the sea surface temperature (SST) and of the soil moisture (SM) mainly upon the precipitation associated with the system. This study was carried out through simulations with BRAMS (Regional Atmospheric Modeling System with Brazilian Developments) regional model, to two SACZ cases, occurred in 1998 and in 1999, periods, respectively, with SSTs of Eastern and central Pacific abnormally warm (El Niño) and abnormally cold (La Niña). Through statistical indices it was verified the model performance, using SSTs with different spatial and temporal resolutions, upon the precipitations forecasting in the regions that compound SACZ (oceanic, coastal and Amazon). The worst and the best performances of BRAMS model occurred when using SST\'s with less and more refined spatial and temporal resolutions, respectively, to the SACZ case of 1998. To the case of 1999 it was observed no significant differences in the models performance. Much of the models error in rains forecasting is due to the bias of the model itself, which is better in identifying the occurrence/non-occurrence of rain than in locate more intense nuclei. However, the BRAMS has high skill regarding to the amount of rain. About the precipitations simulation in the regions that compound SACZ, the best and the worst models performances occurred in the Amazon and oceanic regions, respectively. Concerning the SM it was verified the influences of the driest possible soil condition, applied to continental regions of SACZ, upon systems features such as moisture convergence and precipitation. In general, the amount of rainfall in regions where the dry condition was applied was higher than in the control experiment due to the moisture convergence, which is transported from surrounding regions to the one of drier soil by meso and large scale circulations generated by heterogeneities on the surface. It was also analyzed differences in the characteristics of observed and simulated SACZ at different phases of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The SACZ cases of 1998 and of 1999 were presented more elongated over the Atlantic and predominantly continental, respectively, confirming that periods of El Niño (La Niña) favor the occurrence of oceanic (continental) SACZ. In the BRAMS sensibility tests to SM it was observed probable effect of ENSO upon simulated SACZ, as the upward motion in Amazon SACZ was less intense than in the coastal one in 1998, occurring the opposite in 1999. The warm phase of ENSO favors the subsidence (rising) on Amazon region, which may have contributed to weaken (intensify) the vertical motion on the region in 1998 (1999). (AU) | |