Four years after it began, the project to implement the Regional Meteorology Center for the Metropolitan Region of Campinas (RMC), which should operate at Unicamp, gained new momentum.
A credit of R$3 million for the acquisition of a radar for detecting extreme weather events, made possible by Agemcamp (Campinas Metropolitan Agency), was released by the Campinas Metropolitan Development Fund.
Operating uninterruptedly, the new radar will serve the municipalities of the MRC and will assist in the formulation of policies to prevent and combat extreme events, such as the microexplosions recorded in Campinas six years ago. On that occasion, a storm felled more than two thousand trees, roofed dozens of houses and directly affected more than 1,5 people. According to official data, the storm caused losses of at least R$30 million.
The objective of the Meteorology Center is to provide data for Civil Defense on prevention policies and monitoring of water resources, in addition to supporting research on climate and agriculture at Unicamp.
The Center will operate in an Embrapa Digital room, on the Barão Geraldo campus, where Cepagri already operates. According to a publication in the Official State Gazette on May 31, the credit release instrument is valid for 25 months. From now on, Unicamp will hold the tender for the acquisition of the equipment.
“We are acting as quickly as possible, following the administrative procedures of a tender to purchase imported equipment, together with more than one company representing meteorological radars in Brazil”, said the researcher and meteorologist at Cepagri (Center for Applied Meteorological and Climate Research). to Agriculture) from Unicamp, Ana Ávila.
As it is an election year, there is a time limit. “We will do our best to ensure that the bidding takes place by July 2nd, but there are no guarantees due to the short deadline. Either way, the idea is to work quickly,” he added. According to the researcher, manufacturing the radar takes around 12 months, but the entire process – signing the agreement, installing the equipment and putting it into operation -- is expected to take up to two years.
According to Ana Ávila, the radar range reaches a radius of 100 km - 50km for precise quantification. For her, radar would be the only tool capable of helping to prevent extreme events.
"One of the ways we can react efficiently to extreme events is to carry out adequate meteorological monitoring", said the rector of Unicamp, Antonio Meirelles."This is equipment capable of predicting these events with high sensitivity and in due time. As if You know, the predictability in these cases is not great. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor", he argues. For the rector, the Meteorological Center must monitor the entire metropolitan region and will be fundamental in the development of research in several areas.
Top-of-the-line equipment
The executive director of Agemcamp, Benjamim Vieira de Souza, recalls that the equipment to be purchased is equivalent to that used in developed countries. “The proposal to acquire the radar was initiated in 2018, when I was the president of the RMC Council of Mayors. At the time, we approached Unicamp for a partnership in the creation of the Metropolitan Meteorological Center,” he said.
“We will have first-rate equipment, with the same response and alert standards as US equipment. Agemcamp's role is precisely this, to discuss regional public policies that improve the lives of metropolitan citizens, projects of common interest in the 20 municipalities of the RMC”, he concluded.
Six years of microexplosions
A workshop organized by Cepagri recalled the six years since the extreme weather event that were the microexplosions in Campinas. According to the director of Campinas Civil Defense, Sidnei Furtado, the episode should serve as a warning for authorities to adopt prevention and damage reduction measures. “Natural disasters hit us when we forget about them,” said Furtado, citing Japanese physicist Torahiko Terada.
Held in the Embrapa auditorium, the Workshop was attended by the Civil Defense of São Paulo, the Fire Department and Agemcamp.
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