Brazilian big cities to get warmer and drier

Last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a special report showing a pessimistic scenario in which global warming would take average atmosphere temperatures up 4ºC by 2100. This would mean a 9ºC bump in summer temperatures, which would cut rainfall in Brazil’s largest cities São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and in Santos, home of the country’s busiest port. In these areas, minimum temperatures would still be 4ºC higher, with warmer winters.

These terrible projections are in a study published by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), the University of Rio de Janeiro, and the Natural Disaster Monitoring and Alert Center (Cemaden). Their findings were published by the journal Theoretical and Applied Climatology. “If the current scenario of greenhouse gases remains stable, the outlook we describe becomes immensely probable,” declared André Lyra, a post-doctorate researcher at Inpe.

The Brazilian researchers made simulations of what could happen to temperatures and rainfall in these metropolitan areas considering two scenarios: one pessimistic, and one optimistic. In the latter case, emissions would stop growing by 2040. But even in this scenario, the harmful consequences for Brazil’s big cities won’t change much....