Climate Variability and Natural Disasters in the State of Ceará (1991-2019)

Abstract

The general objective of the research was to discuss how the natural disasters identified in the State of Ceará are related to climatic variability, highlighting those associated with precipitation, in the period from 1991 to 2019. Regarding the methodology, descriptive research was adopted, explanatory and qualitative-quantitative in nature. It was a case study, whose data collection technique started from documentary and bibliographic research. Data analysis was performed using multivariate statistics, using non-linear regression and Pearson's correlation coefficient. The climatic data were obtained, mainly, from the Cearense Foundation of Meteorology and Water Resources (FUNCEME), already the records of disasters, through the State Coordination of Civil Defense of Ceará (CEDEC-CE) and the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC). The results obtained showed that the natural disasters with the greatest number of records were droughts and droughts, correlating highly and negatively with the rains, being associated with the El Niño phenomenon and / or the ocean-atmospheric conditions unfavorable to the rains of the Tropical Atlantic. Floods, floods, floods and heavy rains were the second group of types of disasters examined, correlating moderately and positively with rainfall, associating with the La Niña phenomenon and / or ocean-atmospheric conditions. favorable to tropical Atlantic rains. Therefore, it was concluded that there is a tendency to increase the number of natural disasters in Ceará, which are related to climatic variability.

Keywords
climatology; climate changes; civil defense