Impacto da projeção de mudanças climáticas globais no zoneamento agroclimático da cana-de-açúcar na América do Sul

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) through its Fourth Assessment Report of Global Climate Change (IPCC-AR4), published in 2007, assign emissions of greenhouse gases as the main cause of the increase in average temperatures and alert an increase between 1.8 ºC and 6.4 ºC until 2100, thus being able to modify the climatic aptitude for crops in different regions of the planet. Therefore, a necessity exists to replace fossil fuels with renewable and clean energy sources such as ethanol. The cane sugar, therefore, presents itself as a strategic crop for ethanol production. The study objective: elaborate the agroclimatic zoning of cane sugar to South America considering the climate for future reference and 2050, in function to the emission scenario A1B considered pessimistic and using a balance between all energy sources. For the development of agroclimatic zoning proceeded to calculate the water balance (reference and future) of culture by the method of Thornthwaite & Mather (1955). For the reference scenario used data from monthly averages of precipitation and temperature from the CRU, while for future projections, data from the Multimodel anomalies (ensemble) - MM for the 2050. Based on thematic maps reclassified on annual water deficit, annual mean temperature, annual water surplus and the Index Satisfaction of Water Requirements (ISNA) held an overlay of this information thus obtaining the final maps of agroclimatic zoning of cane sugar. The unfit areas correspond to most of South America and a substantial transition between the classes of weather ability of culture.