Climatic trends in the Amazonian area of Ecuador: Classical and multifractal analyses

The climate evolution and change in the Amazonian area is very important at least at a continental scale involving Latin America where more than 550 million people live. The objective of the present study was to investigate, from an environmental perspective, the climatic trends in the Amazonian area of continental Ecuador. We performed both classical and multifractal analyses of these trends on four climatic variables (maximum and minimum temperature, evaporation and evaporation/precipitation ratio). Data were collected from Puyo meteorological station, Pastaza Province, Ecuador. Data sets covered 31 years (from January 1974 to September 2005). Each time series consisted of 380 months. Piecewise regression analyses with breaking point showed two regimes with a cutoff ranging from t = 80 months (maximum and minimum temperature) to t = 133 months for the evaporation pattern (determination coefficient ≥ 0.979) while the multifractal analyses showed an increasing complexity within each climatic variable. All the considered climatic variables showed an increase since 1974 to approximately 1985. After that some type of smoother increase was observed.