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Modeling monthly mean air temperature for Brazil

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Abstract

Air temperature is one of the main weather variables influencing agriculture around the world. Its availability, however, is a concern, mainly in Brazil where the weather stations are more concentrated on the coastal regions of the country. Therefore, the present study had as an objective to develop models for estimating monthly and annual mean air temperature for the Brazilian territory using multiple regression and geographic information system techniques. Temperature data from 2,400 stations distributed across the Brazilian territory were used, 1,800 to develop the equations and 600 for validating them, as well as their geographical coordinates and altitude as independent variables for the models. A total of 39 models were developed, relating the dependent variables maximum, mean, and minimum air temperatures (monthly and annual) to the independent variables latitude, longitude, altitude, and their combinations. All regression models were statistically significant (α ≤ 0.01). The monthly and annual temperature models presented determination coefficients between 0.54 and 0.96. We obtained an overall spatial correlation higher than 0.9 between the models proposed and the 16 major models already published for some Brazilian regions, considering a total of 3.67 × 108 pixels evaluated. Our national temperature models are recommended to predict air temperature in all Brazilian territories.

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Acknowledgments

To São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP (no. 2008/05744-0) for the scholarship given to the first author. We thank the data provided by National Institute of Meteorology (INMET). The study had FPC and IPEF support. The ideas of doing this study emerged in 2005 from the first author's conversations (when he was still an undergraduate student) with Marcio Morisson Valeriano (National Institute for Space Research). Thereafter, in 2010, during his visit to North Caroline State University (as a Ph.D. student) was that the study took shape from his great conversations with the co-authors. All the 39 temperature models were spatialized and their maps (PDF format) are available for download at http://ipef.br/geodatabase.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forestry Science and Research Institute (IPEF) and Forest Productivity Cooperative (FPC), Comendador Pedro Morgante Avenue, 3500, 13415-000, Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil

    Clayton Alcarde Alvares

  2. Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, 3108 Jordan Hall, Raleigh, NC, 27695-8008, USA

    José Luiz Stape

  3. College of Agriculture “Luiz de Queiroz”, Department of Biosystems Engineering, University of Sao Paulo, Pádua Dias Avenue, 11. 09, 13418-900, Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil

    Paulo Cesar Sentelhas

  4. College of Agriculture “Luiz de Queiroz”, Department of Forestry Sciences, University of Sao Paulo, Pádua Dias Avenue, 11. 09, 13418-900, Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil

    José Leonardo de Moraes Gonçalves

  5. Forest Productivity Cooperative (FPC), 3108 Jordan Hall, Raleigh, NC, 27695-8008, USA

    José Luiz Stape

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  1. Clayton Alcarde Alvares
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  2. José Luiz Stape
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  3. Paulo Cesar Sentelhas
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  4. José Leonardo de Moraes Gonçalves
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Correspondence to Clayton Alcarde Alvares.

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Alvares, C.A., Stape, J.L., Sentelhas, P.C. et al. Modeling monthly mean air temperature for Brazil. Theor Appl Climatol 113, 407–427 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-012-0796-6

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