Monitoramento de índice de conforto térmico humano no Brasil.

Abstract

The extreme cold/heat events may significantly influence society, including damage to health. Likewise, the human thermal comfort is highly dependent on climatic conditions. The objective of this work was to establish a methodology for the monitoring and predictability of the level of human thermal comfort in all regions of Brazil, clarify the climatology of the UTCI (Universal Thermo-climatic Index), investigated the existence of temporal tendency and the temporal behavior of the number of uncomfortable days. The Mann-Kendall test was used to evaluate the trends of serious temporal events. Was used 211 meteorological stations of the INMET’s network from 1984 to 2014, reanalysis data from the ERA-Interim and the COSMO model. It is concluded that the UTCI reproduces the seasonal variations of comfort levels/thermal discomfort throughout Brazil. Its hourly climatology resembles the spatial and temporal characteristics of the air temperature climatology. Regarding the existence of temporal trend, it was observed that, approximately 90% of the meteorological stations present a statistically significant positive tendency of the average, maximum and minimum UTC at 18 UTC by the Mann-Kendall test. In all five-reference stations, it was found that mornings are warmer, with a statistically significant trend in the number of hot days, as a result of positive trends in seasonal winter UTCI; And that the evenings are also warmer, especially in winter. In Brasília, São Paulo and Porto Alegre, there were negative trends in the number of cold days. Żinally, the UTCI was able to reproduce extreme events of cold/heat that occurred recently in Brazil (Żebruary 2014 and July 2013) and its operationalization, on the INMET’s scope, is possible; necessitating a set of computational tools that connect data from stations meteorological model and the 7km COSMO numerical model.