Category: Non catalogato

The Biological and Meteoclimatic Research Station “Italia Costa Rica”, at the Karen Mogensen reserve of Asepaleco, is enriched with new tools for environmental measurements. Thanks to funds raised with donations in favour of Foreste per Semper OdV, a low cost system for air quality and atmospheric CO₂ measurements was purchased and installed. The sensor apparatus was supplied by the Meteoproject company in Medicina (Bologna), in the version powered by a solar panel. The sensor provides measurements of fine particulate matter, PM2.5 and PM10 as well as CO₂ concentration. Connected to the station’s Wi-Fi network, the sensor sends data every 15 minutes that enriches their history which can be consulted in real time at https://www.biometeo.org/en/weather-2/weather/

The new instrument was installed by prof. Dario Sonetti, who is currently in Costa Rica, with the supervision of the meteorologist Luca Lombroso for the positioning, setting and configuration aspects. The support provided by Stefano Guerra, owner of Meteoproject, is also precious, both for practical advice and for the preparation of the database and web pages. The complete data and the archive are in fact available on this page, kindly hosted by Meteoproject. http://www.meteoproject.it/ftp/stazioni/karen/index.php

The purpose of the tool is primarily informative, to have comparative data available from a place that, from the first measurements, is confirmed to have truly pure and uncontaminated air. Despite the limits of the type of instrument, we will therefore try to carry out initial assessments on natural particulate matter, on any phenomena of transport of pollutants, on the CO₂ cycle and its absorption processes in the Karen Mogensen Reserve, as well as verify the trend over the years long term of these data. The current low cost measures are the basis for future expansions and improvement of the existing meteorological and environmental instrumentation. The concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 measured in the first days are very low, close to the minimum detectable by the instrument, sometimes even lower than 1  µg/m³ in the concentrations of PM10, rarely reach 10  µg/m³ while the more harmful, PM2.5, almost always remains below 5  µg/m³. To give an idea, the city of Modena rarely sees, only on very clear and windy days, concentrations below 15-20  µg/m³ of PM10 while in days of smog emergency they also exceed 100  µg/m³ in both parameters. We also remind you that the Italian legal limit for PM10 is 50 µg/m³ of average daily value not to be exceeded for more than 35 days a year.

Moreover, it is reasonable to believe that in addition to the low concentrations of particulate matter, they are almost entirely made up of components of natural origin, such as pollen, dust from the soil, transported marine particulate and other organic and inorganic material. Of course it is a hypothesis that we hope to be able to confirm one day with measurements from more advanced instruments. Regarding the concentrations of carbon dioxide, better known as carbon dioxide or CO₂, the discussion is more complex. CO₂, remember, is not a pollutant but a greenhouse gas, and its dynamics mean that it spreads everywhere, so much so that the main detection stations are in remote places such as the island of Mauna Loa in Hawaii or at the top of mountains. such as Monte Cimone on the Modena Apennines, far from direct anthropogenic sources. In the forest, the behavior of concentrations is made complex by the cycle of the vegetation itself. To these are added the weather effects, in particular the diurnal and nocturnal evolution of the mixed layer.

Thus, the first data showing concentrations ranging between about 500 and 700 ppm should not surprise and are not comparable with the concentrations of the reference stations mentioned above, which are around 410 ppm. On the other hand, the sensor for practical reasons is installed at the station itself, under the forest canopy. The trend of the first few days of measurement that we show you in the following graph is still very interesting. In fact, a diurnal cycle is noted, with minimum concentrations in the hottest hours and maximums at night.

This “breath of the forest”, as we like to call it, is due to two factors, one weather, linked to the diurnal atmospheric mixing and stagnation of the air at night, and the other the vegetation cycle itself.

Aspects that will be studied in depth over time, continuing the measurements and supporting high-precision instruments in the future, together, we hope, with study and research activities dedicated to these complex aspects, fundamental for the study and fight against climate change and the conservation of biodiversity.

Text by Luca Lombroso and Dario Sonetti

November was very rainy as measured at the “Italia Costa Rica” Biological and Meteorological Experimental Research Station. Due to the landfall north of Costa Rica of two catastrophic hurricanes, Eta and Iota, which also gave an indirect influence on the Nicoya peninsula in November 2020, a total of 325.6 mm fell.

From the climatological data reconstructed with the Meteoblue reanalysis, in the period 1986-2015 the average rainfall in November was 191.0 mm. Our station has only been in operation since 2016 and fully operational since February 2017, in this period we had never seen so much rainfall.

The average monthly temperature was affected by heavy rain and scarce sunshine and is therefore 25.0° C, the lowest value in our short series of data, but still higher than the 1986-2015 average obtained from the renanalysis which is 24.6 ° C.

The wettest day of the month was the 22nd, with 51.6 mm, the lowest minimum temperature of 19.3 ° C on the 19th and the highest maximum temperature of 31.7 ° C on the 26th.

The anomalous rainy situation had as a consequence the delay in the arrival of the dry season, in the month there are in fact 26 days with measurable rainfall, also given the first data of December, the rainy season seems to have ended with the showers of 27-28 November.

So far we had observed rains until day 22 in 2017, until 17 in 2018 and until 11 in 2019, in these two years some rains followed even at the end of the month, but of an isolated character while in this 2020 the rainfall was substantially daily until the end of the month.

In the video you can see the time lapse of the webcam of the Karen Mogensen Reserve from 1 to 3 November 2020, with the formation and circulation of clouds and the wind induced by the indirect effects of Hurricane Eta, which impacted the coast of Nicaragua on the border with Honduras. Hurricane Eta did not hit Costa Rica, but its indirect effects were affected by continuous rains, especially on November 3. In the timelapse on day 1 we note the formation of mainly convective clouds, superimposed on bank transits of stratocumulus and nimbostrati. On day 2 the continuous changes of direction of the clouds are interesting, while on day 3 the cloud cover was uniform for nimbostrati and with continuous but overall not extraordinary rains.

On November 3, thanks to the coverage, the maximum temperature did not go beyond 23.7 ° C, which is the lowest maximum temperature recorded in 2020.
In detail, these are the rains that fell at Karen Mogensen at the Italia Costa Rica Station:

01/11/2020: 0.2 mm
02/11/2020: 20.4 mm
03/11/2020: 48.0 mm

the total is 68.6 mm, and now, November 4th, it is still raining.

Luca Lombroso – meteorologist

A post was recently published in the international magazine Realclimate, taken up and translated on the Climalteranti website, very current for the question that comes from a study conducted by the famous polytechnic of Zurich and which allowed us once again to confirm that what our association Foreste per Semper has been conducting for years it is part of a correct action and therefore to be supported, even with your help. For those who wish, we refer you to reading the entire article on the Climalteranti website while here we want to pass some data in a summary that is in any case very significant. According to this study, planting trees could reduce the increase in anthropogenic CO2 by two thirds. Researchers estimate that 200 billion tonnes of carbon would be sequestered… provided that more than one trillion trees were planted!

Too good to be true? This statement has been revised and evaluated more correctly, also considering other facts.

Some data: humanity emits 11 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year
(gigatonnes, abbreviated to GtC) which in the form of CO2 correspond to 40 gigatonnes, because a CO2 molecule is 3.7 heavier than the carbon atom alone. From 1850 to today, total emissions have reached 640 GtC of which 31% due to land use (deforestation above all), 67% to fossil energy and 2% to other sources, and the trend is growing.

The result is that the amount of CO2 in the air has increased by 50% compared to an equilibrium emissions / natural sequestration, and is greater than it has ever been for at least 3 million years. To deny that this is the main cause of the ongoing warming is to want to deny stubbornly the evidence and above all that this increase is entirely caused by humans ..

In reality, we find “only” 300 GtC in the air, even though we have issued 640 GtC. It means that only less than half of our emissions remained in the atmosphere, the rest fortunately. it was absorbed by the oceans and forests.

The authors of the new study say it would take fifty to one hundred years for those trillion trees planted to seize the desired 200 GtC – with an average of 2-4 GtC per year, but the problem is that there are still few to cope. to current emissions of 11 GtC per year! We would therefore still be far from the prospect of solving two thirds of the climate problem. And precisely because reforestation takes a long time, cutting down mature and species-rich forests, which are large reserves of carbon and precious biological diversity, should be absolutely prohibited today.

There is also another problem related to climate change, without effective climate protection, global warming will lead to a massive loss of existing forests, especially in the Tropics.
Unfortunately, current models are unable to reliably simulate how forests are they will be able to withstand new extreme events: fires, permafrost melting, insects, fungi and diseases in a changing climate.

Planting huge quantities of trees all over the world undoubtedly becomes a project to be tackled and implemented as soon as possible and certainly not by planting only monocultures but by recreating the natural state as much as possible in a context of ecological sustainability, so as to reap further benefits of forests not only for the local climate, but for the conservation of biodiversity, the protection of the water cycle and even as a source of food, improving the living conditions of those peoples who still live in close contact with forests.

FpS has been acting for years in this perspective, not forgetting, however, that the fundamental strategic move will be the abandonment of the use of fossil fuels which must end soon precisely because we want to safeguard the existing forests in the world.

It is with some satisfaction that we continue to receive uninterrupted weather data from the meteorological station installed at the Karen Mogensen reserve, near the Italia Costa Rica station.

Contact had been lost for a few days, probably due to a hardware block of the data logger due to power cuts, as in the rainy season the solar panels are not always able to charge the batteries sufficiently. Fortunately, however, the data flow was resumed regularly, and no data was lost.

Thus we see from the Weatherlink software where the data is received, at the Geophysical Observatory of DIEF UNIMORE, that the month of October has a substantially normal trend for the season, with abundant and frequent rains, but in fact in line with the climatology obtained from the Reanalysis.

To date, October 26, 2020, 362.7 mm of rain have fallen in the month, only one day, the 17th, has not recorded any measurable precipitation.

Yesterday, October 25, in particular, the maximum daily rainfall in the month was recorded, with 36.8 mm concentrated in two intense showers, one around noon local and one around 03:00 pm.

The weather situation of these days in fact sees the presence of the intertropical convergence zone just near the Nicoya Peninsula, with the passage of frequent tropical waves. There are no tropical storms or hurricanes near Costa Rica, but a marginal influence of Hurricane Zeta, which heads towards the Yucatan and the Gulf of Mexico, draws humid and warm air from the Pacific Ocean. However, this system will not affect or impact Costa Rica.

To give some comparison, last year in October the rains totalled 380.0 mm in total, with a maximum of 80.8 mm on 13/10/2019, and in the month the temperatures were substantially in line with those recorded in this month of 2020. .

On the other hand, it was much wetter in October 2018, when 647.8 mm fell, with three days of truly torrential rain, from the 3rd to the 5th of the month, with a daily maximum of 244.4 mm.

The next few days will still be often rainy, due to the presence of the Monsoon Trof, defined as an enlarged low pressure zone along the ICTZ, a zone of intertropical convergence.

From climatology, in the month of November the rainy season should be thinning out, on average next month it sees about 180 mm, the middle of October, while only from December the rainy season will end, leading the area to the dry season.

We continue our weather monitoring, useful to understand the behaviour of biodiversity and, over time, to build a climatological database and better understand how the local climate changes.

Curated by Luca Lombroso, AMPRO Meteorologist

It is full rainy season in Costa Rica and our weather station is providing valuable data. Thanks to the development last February with maintenance of the rain gauge, clogged with leaves and more in the dry season, and to the cleaning of the temperature and humidity sensor where hives and other insects had found hospitality, the instrumentation also thanks to the subsequent interventions of prof. Dario Sonetti, who remained at the Italia Costa Rica Station until July, and at the controls of Mr Arnulfo, now collects very interesting data.
We knew, from climatology reconstructed by reanalyses (a method for reconstructing past data based on modeling) that October is a very rainy month both in quantity, 348.8 mm on average from the reconstructions of the period 1985-2015. both for frequency of rain, in October on average 25 days out of 31 are rainy. This year the trend is in line with the climatology, as you can see in the last 31 days the rains are almost daily, consistent overall, 217.4 mm from 1 October to today, 322.6 mm in September, but typical of the season, those in September, however, slightly below the climatological average.
The more experienced in meteorology can then note how the dynamics of the tropical circulation is completely different from ours in the middle latitudes, as can be seen from the atmospheric pressure trend, which does not see significant variations in value and has no evident correlation with the presence of rainfall. the reason is in the tropical circulation, and in the dynamics of precipitation, governed not by the passage of cold and hot fronts as in the middle latitudes, with adjoining depressions alternating with anticyclones, but everything is triggered by convective processes and even more in detail by the release of heat latent in the condensation process of the air masses. Humidity in particular can be transported from the sea, by evaporation processes, but also come from the forest itself. We do not go further into the details, also because it is precisely among the purposes of our monitoring to deepen these processes and the role of the ongoing climate change on the one hand and of the forest itself on the other.

Luca Lombroso