Caracterização topo e mesoclimática do município de Sarzedo (MG)

Abstract

The transformations of environments, resulting from urbanization processes, have drawn the attention of the scientific community about the impacts on environmental quality in cities. In this context, with a focus on the environmental quality and quality of life of city populations, climatological science has paid attention to aspects of the urban climate, since it has direct influences on environmental, socioeconomic aspects and, consequently, on the quality of life of the population. Therefore, the main objective of this work was to present a preliminary characterization of the top and mesoclimatic conditions of the city of Sarzedo (MG), identifying possible variations in thermal and hygrological fields depending on the use and coverage of the soil. For this, it was necessary to survey the geoecological characteristics and the use and coverage of the soils in the study area and characterize the circulation in the planetary boundary layer, pointing out the main atmospheric systems that act on the city throughout the year. Also, two field experiments were performed – one during the dry period (01 to 10/17/2019) and the other in the rainy period (02/21 to 03/11/2020) –, in which hourly data of air temperature and relative humidity were collected, at nine points distributed in the ciity with different morphologies and land uses. The behavior of climatic variables, added to the geoecological and land use and coverage characteristics, allowed the theoretical delimitation of five topoclimatic units, which are drier and hotter in the urban area of the ciity and become more humid and milder as that moves away from the urban center and the topography rises. The results pointed to a warmer and drier urban center than the surrounding environment, however, differences in temperature and humidity tended to minimize during the night and/or under unstable atmospheric conditions. Thus, urban transformations in Sarzedo are not yet able to offer lasting changes in the behavior of climatic variables.