Estudo da densidade de descargas atmosféricas no Estado do Acre utilizando dados da rede de detecção Vaisala GLD-360

Abstract

The Amazonian territory is known internationally as a region with a high incidence of lightning strikes. To understand the behavior of this natural phenomenon, it contributes a lot to the development of protection systems, which start to be better dimensioned and strategically distributed, safeguarding the integrity of structures and safety for living beings. In order to investigate whether the current assessment of the exposure risks of these systems, suggested by the Brazilian standard NBR 5419/2015, is reliable for Acre’s state, a study of the density indexes of lightning to ground (Ng) was carried out for this region, during the period 2016-2019, using data provided by the foreign detection network Vaisala GLD-360. The Ng parameter measures the quantity of discharges per square kilometer that reach a certain area in a period of one year, and is crucial for an assessment of exposure risks of protection systems. Through the geoprocessing tool QGIS 3.14.0, average Ng values were found to be much higher than those suggested by NBR 5419/2015 for all Acre’s cities, which raises the need to consider a revision of the referred document, and a proposal to update these indexes for the aforementioned region.