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Changes in extreme daily rainfall for São Paulo, Brazil

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Abstract

Significant positive trends are found in the evolution of daily rainfall extremes in the city of São Paulo (Brazil) from 1933 to 2010. Climatic indices including ENSO, PDO, NAO and the sea surface temperature at the coast near São Paulo explain 85 % of the increasing frequency of extremes during the dry season. During the wet season the climatic indices and the local sea surface temperature explain a smaller fraction of the total variance when compared to the dry season indicating that other factors such as the growth of the urban heat island and the role of air pollution in cloud microphysics need to be taken into account to explain the observed trends over the almost eight decades.

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Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by FAPESP and CNPq. JD acknowledges the support of a NRC Research Associate fellowship. LMVC acknowledges the support of NOAA NA10OAR4310170 and NSF 1126804. PLDSD acknowledges the support of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ciências Atmosféricas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Maria A. F. Silva Dias & Edmilson D. Freitas

  2. Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA, Boulder, CO, USA

    Juliana Dias

  3. University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Leila M. V. Carvalho

  4. Departamento de Ciências Atmosféricas, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Pedro L. Silva Dias

  5. Laboratório Nacional de Computação Científica, Petrópolis, Brazil

    Pedro L. Silva Dias

Authors
  1. Maria A. F. Silva Dias
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  2. Juliana Dias
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  3. Leila M. V. Carvalho
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  4. Edmilson D. Freitas
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  5. Pedro L. Silva Dias
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Correspondence to Maria A. F. Silva Dias.

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Silva Dias, M.A.F., Dias, J., Carvalho, L.M.V. et al. Changes in extreme daily rainfall for São Paulo, Brazil. Climatic Change 116, 705–722 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-012-0504-7

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