Brazil develops its own weather forecast model – 02/28/2023 – Environment

Thinking about increasing accuracy and improving the prevention of environmental and climate disasters, researchers are developing a new mathematical model for forecasting specific weather for Brazil.

The objective is for research centers to start using this more modern model, which will be created with a focus on the conditions and particularities of the country. Thus, it would be possible to anticipate in a more refined way not only climatic events such as the rains that devastated the north coast of São Paulo last week, but also to analyze changes in the average temperature and rainfall patterns of each season.

Named Monan (English acronym for Model for Predicting the Oceans, Land Surfaces and Atmosphere), the project is being led by a scientific committee headed by Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), linked to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.

The team is made up of 32 people, bringing together professionals from different specialties and Brazilian regions, who also have the role of coordinating discussions in their areas, expanding the scope of participation of the national scientific community. In all, more than one hundred people are involved in the project, which has been developed since 2021.

“It will be [um modelo] as modern and advanced as the current models of the United States, Japan and Europe, as well as the advantage of considering the specificities of Brazil”, says Gilvan Sampaio, general coordinator of Earth Sciences at INPE.

“But, for me, the most important thing is that it is a collective construction of the national scientific community, from north to south of the country, which will allow the country to work with a single model, that is, [os cientistas] they won’t need to be ‘importing’ models for their research. In addition, it will enable the training of human resources in modeling the Earth system”, he points out.

Covering characteristics of the atmosphere, cryosphere (continental ice), oceans, soils and vegetation and upper atmosphere (phenomena associated with space), the project is being designed in parts. By the end of the year, the atmosphere component should be completed, which already makes it possible for it to be used for short-term weather forecasts, on a scale of days.

Then, with the ocean and cryosphere components completed and merged together, the model can be used for longer forecasts, anticipating weather events by months. This step must be completed within four years.

When complete and with all these components interacting, Monan should be able to make complex, fine-scale climate predictions of hundreds of meters. The deadline for completing the model is ten years.

“Further on, when this system is set up, we are going to introduce a human component”, says INPE physicist Saulo Freitas, who coordinates Monan’s scientific committee alongside researcher Pedro Dias, from USP.

He explains that, adding the variables of human activities, such as occupation, changes in land cover and atmospheric composition, with greenhouse gases, for example, it will be possible to use the system to develop scenarios for climate change on a centenary scale. .

“Although our forecasts have evolved a lot in recent years, they are still not at the same level, for example, of those provided by the European and American centers for climate forecasting”, says Freitas.

He adds that the idea is that this could be a unique model that meets the particularities of all of South America, considering the influence of elements such as the Amazon, the Andes and the Atlantic Ocean.

Supercomputer

Associated with Monan, Inpe is going to open a tender for the purchase of a supercomputer that will be used to calibrate and serve as a platform for the development of the climate model. “When we calibrate it’s like going there and tightening a screw in the model code. To find out if it’s improved, you have to run the model on a supercomputer. So, the faster the machine, the faster we can do this calibration” , explains Sampaio.

He believes that at least the first stage of installing the equipment will be completed by November. In all, R$ 200 million from the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development will be invested in the new supercomputer.

For climatologist Carlos Nobre, who is not involved with the project, this is an opportunity for Inpe to resume the role it once had and which was weakened by budget cuts and political decisions —such as the one that led to the resignation of Ricardo Galvão of the board of directors, in 2019, by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

He explains that, at the institute, Monan will enable the same type of weather forecast management that works in developed countries and in China: from a federal center, global, regional and climate change forecasts are made daily. The forecasts are then distributed to different sectors, which will use them according to their particularities.

“For example, receiving these forecasts, Cemaden (National Center for Monitoring and Natural Disaster Alerts) sees the risk of landslides, floods, natural disasters. Agriculture sees how this will impact crops, crop failures, etc. “

Nobre explains that INPE itself created other climate models, such as the case of Besm (Brazilian Model of the Earth System), whose results became part of the fifth report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) of the UN, in 2014. This was the first model from Latin America that entered the IPCC.

However, he claims that it was precisely the lack of modernization of the Tupã supercomputer that meant that Besm could not be used in the preparation of the most up-to-date report, published between 2021 and 2022.

He says he believes, however, that, in addition to Monan, it is necessary that the existing models at INPE also continue to be improved.