Correlações entre as séries temporais de queimadas e variáveis climáticas nos biomas brasileiros

Abstract

Forest fires are complex phenomena, influenced by a set of climatic factors, in addition to human interference. In Brazil, these fires affect all biomes. Therefore, the study of these fires is necessary due to their negative effects, including not only environmental damage, but also greenhouse gas emissions and economic losses. In this scenario, understanding the temporal and spatial distribution of these fires is challenging, due to the variation in their natural behavior. This study seeks to address this issue, using fractal techniques to analyze the long-term temporal and spatial correlations between fires in Brazilian biomes during the period from 2002 to 2022. The results for the Amazon, Caatinga, Cerrado, and Atlantic Forest biomes showed that in the daily series of fire anomalies and climate variables (relative humidity, maximum temperature, rainfall, and wind speed), there are persistent long-range correlations, in which the persistence of fires was strongest in the Amazon biome and weakest in the Atlantic Forest. Climate variables are more persistent in the Caatinga biome and less persistent in the Atlantic Forest. Furthermore, persistent long-range cross-correlations were observed between the series of climate variables and fires in the four biomes. For the Amazon, Caatinga and Cerrado biomes, the DCCA correlation coefficient values indicated positive correlations between fires and the maximum temperature and wind speed variables, and negative correlations between fires and the relative humidity and rainfall variables. For the Atlantic Forest biome, the correlations between fires and the maximum temperature variable were positive and negative for the other climate variables.