A Climatological Data Base for the Amazon Region

Abstract

First of all, it is important to state that selected data sets should be prepared for the Amazon region to support regional applied studies, and also to support regionál and gló6al clirñate resäåreh. There's lore, all data available fõr the region will be useful for helping large field experiments in Amazonia in the scientific areas of atmoJpherïc chemistry, Ecology and.Hydro-meteorology. Considering this scaling' the s-ummary will focus some aspãðts of a major effort to build up a Climatological Data Base for -the Amazonia "using meteorological data collected at the Brazilian Air Force Network,. This meteorological network is composed by l7 (seventeen) surface stations and 3 (three) Ìppgr air stations across ìhe Amazon region and neighborhood. In addition, the majority of the surface stations has at least twenty-year series of hourly obãervations. Therefore, these data have to be considered under historical and present pérspectives. The network has been operated by the "Departamento de Eletrônica e Proteção ao Vôo (ÐEPV)". In order to make this reasonable amount of information available to the scientific Community a broad job has been performed to control all aspects of climate" autä management. This work includes procedures to arehive, microfilme, digitize, quality control, analyze and publish climate dáta. It is important to remind the main problem concerning meteorological data and climate data from pást years in Amazonia is that -oãt of the information still remainJ in original paper forms. For this reason, the observations have to be digìtize¿ ana recorded in magnetic media. -However, significant progrãss toward better data availability h+ been made over the last years. During the same time, there have been new ideas about what-methods of ãata management help scientists accomplish their goals.