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Frequency, Duration, Spatial Coverage, and Intensity of Heat Waves in Brazil

Abstract

Heat waves impact the socio-economic sectors of many world regions. At health public, for example, there are impacts on mortality rate. This study proposes to show the frequency, duration, spatial coverage, and intensity of heat waves. It was used daily maximum temperature (Tmax) (1961-2014) observed by 265 meteorological stations separated by three areas of Brazil. At first, it was identified the events which, during three or more days, at least 50% of observations in the area had Tmax greater than mean Tmax plus one standard deviation. After, for each event, it was calculated the spatial and temporal mean of Tmax, which we called of intensity. Lastly, the events with intensity in upper quartile were called heat waves. The results showed 11 heat waves in area 1, 23 in area 2, and 31 in area 3, the most of them in spring and summer. Our main finding shows an increase of heat waves during last five decades. In addition, the most of heat waves, being also the more intense and longer, occurred after 2000, during Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) cool phase. Those findings appear how strong indications for actions of the climate changes on behavior of heat waves in Brazil.

Keywords:
heat wave; climate change; health public

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