The influence of climatic anomalies on hot spots occurrence in the Brazilian Amazon Region

In this paper, we describe the generation of climatic anomaly surfaces for the Brazilian Amazon region and the correlation between these surfaces and hot spot incidence detected by NOAA 12 satellite. Quarterly anomaly surfaces of temperature and precipitation for the period of January 1992 to December 2000 were produced by fitting a partial thin plate smoothing spline to data from meteorological stations located in 9 states in the Brazilian Amazon area. Summary statistics and graphical representation of the surfaces are used to check for data errors and to compare with hot spots. During the period of investigation, the quarterly surfaces show that the Brazilian Amazon climate has been experiencing some changes. The research shows that there is not a good correlation between hot spots and climatic anomalies since hot spots are mainly produced by human activity in that region. A better understanding of the influences of climatic anomalies on the hot spots occurrence in that region requires the use of fire scar data in the analysis.