Topoclimatic Zoning and Representative Areas as Determined by an AutomaticWeather Station (AWS) Network in the Atacama Region, Chile
Author
dc.contributor.author
Cortez, Donna
Author
dc.contributor.author
Padilla, Rodrigo
Author
dc.contributor.author
Herrera, Sebastián
Author
dc.contributor.author
Paneque Corrales, Manuel
Admission date
dc.date.accessioned
2020-10-29T18:55:31Z
Available date
dc.date.available
2020-10-29T18:55:31Z
Publication date
dc.date.issued
2020
Cita de ítem
dc.identifier.citation
Atmosphere 2020, 11, 611
es_ES
Identifier
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10.3390/atmos11060611
Identifier
dc.identifier.uri
https://repositorio.uchile.cl/handle/2250/177476
Abstract
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Climate information is crucial to the management and profitability of key development
sectors involving agriculture, hydrologic resources, natural hazards, and energy. Climate knowledge,
real-time weather information, and climate predictions reliability all contribute to the planning
and management of socioeconomic activities and sustainable development. Automatic weather
stations (AWSs) are remotely operated and facilitate the recording of meteorological information
for unoccupied and out-of-reach areas. However, the representative area of the Atacama region is
unknown, whose uniqueness is largely determined by the topography of the terrain. This paper
describes the topoclimatic zoning of the Atacama region, based on the identification of homogeneous
climatic and topographic areas, using climatic information, principal component analysis, and cluster
analysis. Topoclimatic zoning was used to determine the representative area of the AWSs. Sixty-one
regional topographic units were identified as equivalent to the representative area of the AWS.
The directly represented area was estimated at 2365 km2 (3.13% of the regional total), the indirectly
represented area was 8725 km2 (11.53%), and the unrepresented area was 64,561 km2 (85.34%).
This large unrepresented area displays potential zones for futureAWSinstallations, which can improve
both the e ciency of the regional meteorological network and access to quality climate information.