The Metropolitan Area of São Paulo (MASP) is one of the most populated regions of the planet with one of the largest impervious regions as well. This research work aims to characterize MASP heat island (HI) effect and its interaction with the local sea breeze (SB) inflow in rainfall amounts and deep convection. The combined SB-HI produces direct circulation over the MASP and produces severe weather and socioeconomic impacts. All SB-HI episodes between 2005 and 2008 are identified and analyzed with surface and upper air measurements, weather radar, and satellite data. The current work indicates that intense SB-HI episodes are related to air and dew point temperatures above 30 ∘ C and 20 ∘ C, respectively, right after the passage of the SB front over MASP. Results indicate that the precipitation related to SB-HI episodes is up to 600 mm or about four times higher than that in rural or less urbanized areas in its surroundings. Measurements indicate that 74% of SB-HI episodes are related to NW winds in earlier afternoon hours. Moving cold fronts in southern Brazil tend to intensify the SB-HI circulation in MASP. A conceptual model of these patterns is presented in this paper.

The origin of modern disjunct plant distributions in the Brazilian Highlands with strong floristic affinities to distant montane rainforests of isolated mountaintops in the northeast and northern Amazonia and the Guyana Shield remains unknown. We tested the hypothesis that these unexplained biogeographical patterns reflect former ecosystem rearrangements sustained by widespread plant migrations possibly due to climatic patterns that are very dissimilar from present-day conditions. To address this issue, we mapped the presence of the montane arboreal taxa Araucaria, Podocarpus, Drimys, Hedyosmum, Ilex, Myrsine, Symplocos, and Weinmannia, and cool-adapted plants in the families Myrtaceae, Ericaceae, and Arecaceae (palms) in 29 palynological records during Heinrich Stadial 1 Event, encompassing a latitudinal range of 30°S to 0°S. In addition, Principal Component Analysis and Species Distribution Modelling were used to represent past and modern habitat suitability for Podocarpus and Araucaria. The data reveals two long-distance patterns of plant migration connecting south/southeast to northeastern Brazil and Amazonia with a third short route extending from one of them. Their paleofloristic compositions suggest a climatic scenario of abundant rainfall and relative lower continental surface temperatures, possibly intensified by the effects of polar air incursions forming cold fronts into the Brazilian Highlands. Although these taxa are sensitive to changes in temperature, the combined pollen and speleothems proxy data indicate that this montane rainforest expansion during Heinrich Stadial 1 Event was triggered mainly by a less seasonal rainfall regime from the subtropics to the equatorial region.

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Accurate daily rainfall estimation is required in several applications such as in hydrology, hydrometeorology, water resources management, geomorphology, civil protection, and agriculture, among others. CMORPH daily rainfall estimations were integrated with rain gauge measurements in Brazil between 2000 and 2015, in order to reduce daily rainfall estimation errors by means of the statistical objective analysis scheme (SOAS). Early comparisons indicated high discrepancies between daily rain gauge rainfall measurements and respective CMORPH areal rainfall accumulation estimates that tended to be reduced with accumulation time span (e.g., yearly accumulation). Current results show CMORPH systematically underestimates daily rainfall accumulation along the coastal areas. The normalized error variance (NEXERVA) is higher in sparsely gauged areas at Brazilian North and Central-West regions. Monthly areal rainfall averages and standard deviation were obtained for eleven Brazilian watersheds. While an overall negative tendency (3 mm·h−1) was estimated, the Amazon watershed presented a long-term positive tendency. Monthly areal mean precipitation and respective spatial standard deviation closely follow a power-law relationship for data-rich watersheds, i.e., with denser rain gauge networks. Daily SOAS rainfall accumulation was also used to calculate the spatial distribution of frequencies of 3-day rainfall episodes greater than 100 mm. Frequencies greater than 3% were identified downwind of the Peruvian Andes, the Bolivian Amazon Basin, and the La Plata Basin, as well as along the Brazilian coast, where landslides are recurrently triggered by precipitation.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Area Convection Study (TOMACS) for extreme-weather-resilient cities is a research and development project (RDP) of the World Weather Research Programme (WWRP).TOMACS provided a multiplatform and high spatiotemporal resolution dataset for the present research on three episodes of deep convection in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area (TMA) under its heat island effect and sea breeze circulations. Heavy rainfall episodes of August 26, 2011, and July 23 and August 12, 2013, were simulated with (and without) the tropical town energy budget (T-TEB) model coupled with the advanced regional prediction system (ARPS). The T-TEB/ARPS system used initial and boundary conditions from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) mesoscale analysis data for 24-hour integration runs at 5-km resolution over Japan and at 1-km resolution over TOMACS area. The 1-km resolution hourly rainfall field simulations were verified against the respective automated meteorological data acquisition system (AMeDAS) rain gauge network measurements. Statistics of the Contingency tables were obtained to estimate the critical success index (CSI), probability of detection (POD), and false alarm rate (FAR) as well as the root mean square error (RMSE). The T-TEB/ARPS simulations improved the south and east sea breeze circulations of TMA and its urban heat island effect.The time evolution of CSI scores improved within the advective time scale, whereas dissipation (phase) errors on precipitation RMSE increased with the integration time and were larger than the dispersion (amplitude) errors. The initial and boundary conditions of JMA greatly improved the simulations as compared to the previous ones performed with the outputs of NCEP's global forecast system as indicated by the TOMACS datasets. Thus, the results represent the temporal and spatial evolutions of the atmospheric conditions leading to the development of a deep convection within TOMACS region.Furthermore, TMA is a good testbed to evaluate the urban surface schemes, such as T-TEB in this study.4

Debris flows represent great hazard to humans due to their high destructive power. Understanding their hydrogeomorphic dynamics is fundamental in hazard assessment studies, especially in subtropical and tropical regions where debris flows have scarcely been studied when compared to other mass-wasting processes. Thus, this study aims at systematically analyzing the meteorological and geomorphological factors that characterize a landslide-triggered debris flow at the Pedra Branca catchment (Serra do Mar, Brazil), to quantify the debris flow’s magnitude, peak discharge and velocity. A magnitude comparison with empirical equations (Italian Alps, Taiwan, Serra do Mar) is also conducted. The meteorological analysis is based on satellite data and rain gauge measurements, while the geomorphological characterization is based on terrestrial and aerial investigations, with high spatial resolution. The results indicate that it was a large-sized stony debris flow, with a total magnitude of 120,195 m3, a peak discharge of 2146.7 m3 s−1 and a peak velocity of 26.5 m s−1. The debris flow was triggered by a 188-mm rainfall in 3 h (maximum intensity of 128 mm h−1), with an estimated return period of 15 to 20 years, which, combined with the intense accumulation of on-channel debris (ca. 37,000 m3), indicates that new high-magnitude debris flows in the catchment and the region are likely to occur within the next two decades. The knowledge of the potential frequency and magnitude (F–M) can support the creation of F–M relationships for Serra do Mar, a prerequisite for reliable hazard management and monitoring programs.

analisados. As simulações de controle e específicas com ARPS sugerem um impacto significativo da cobertura do solo na distribuição espacial da precipitação.As análises foram complementadas com medições do radar meteorológico MXPOL e demonstram a importância desse tipo de sensoriamento remoto na detecção e previsão a curtíssimo prazo da penetração de BM, com alta resolução espaço- medium and upper levels of several variables of the analysed events. Moreover, the ARPS system was used to simulate SB with control and specific runs. Results suggest significant impact of surface cover on rainfall distribution. MXPOL weather radar measurements of SB were important in detecting and nowcasting SB inflow at very high spatial and temporal resolution.

This study consists of hydrological simulations of the Muriaé river watershed with the topography-based hydrological model (TOPMODEL) and available stream gauge and rain measurements between 2009 and 2013 for two subbasins, namely Carangola and Patrocínio do Muriaé. The simulations were carried out with the Climate Prediction Center morphing method (CMORPH) precipitation estimates and rain gauge measurements integrated into CM-ORPH by the Statistical Objective Analysis Scheme (SOAS). TOPMODEL calibration was performed with the shuffled complex evolution (SCE-UA) method with Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE). The best overall results were obtained with CMORPH (NSE ~ 0.6) for both subbasins. The simulations with SOAS resulted in an NSE ~ 0.2. However, in an analysis of days with highlevel stages, SOAS simulations resulted in a better hit rate (23%) compared to CMORPH (10%). CMORPH simulations underestimated the flows at the flood periods, which indicates the importance to use multi-sensor precipitation data. The results with TOPMODEL allow an estimate of future discharges, which allows for better planning of a flood warning system and discharge measurement schedule.