Exploratory: generated automatically from the UmaTerra platforms' data; not independently validated or peer reviewed.

UmaTerra · story Português
Science · Climate · Florianópolis

Florianópolis: the capital, the Santa Catarina coast and the mountains, read with one ruler

Eight INMET stations in three regions: the capital (Florianópolis), the Santa Catarina coast (Itajaí, Laguna, Itapoá and Urussanga) and the mountains (São Joaquim, Bom Jardim da Serra and Rancho Queimado). The metro region has a single station here, the capital’s. What they and the satellite record: land use from 1985 to 2025, temperature and rain from 2000 to 2025, the surface heat island, the risks read separately, the biodiversity in GBIF, and protected areas.

How to cite: Biondo, Leandro M. (2026). Florianópolis: the capital, the Santa Catarina coast and the mountains, read with one ruler. UmaTerra. https://umaterra.com.br/en/stories/florianopolis/

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—INMET stations used, in 3 regions measured
—change in urban area within 5 km of the metro-region stations, 1985–2025 measured
—°C of night-time surface heat island in the metro region, mean 2001–2025 measured
—years of valid data on the coast measured

measured by INMET, MapBiomas, MODIS, SRTM, GBIF or WDPA. estimated a reading that depends on a choice (a threshold, a buffer, a model). missing a part that did not respond this time.

1

Where the stations are

The capital, the Santa Catarina coast and the mountains each have a different set of INMET stations, with series of different lengths. Pick a region to frame the map. Curitibanos and Ituporanga lie outside the regions.

2

Forty years of land use, drag the bar

On the left, land use in 1985; on the right, in 2025, from MapBiomas’ annual mapping (Collection 11). The bar shows the same area at both dates: what changes shows along the line.

3

Four readings of the same territory

The buttons switch the layer on the map: land use in 2025, slope above 20°, valley floors, up to 10 m above the nearest river (HAND), and night surface temperature, mean 2016 to 2025. Each answers a different question, and none adds the others.

4

The four regions side by side

Same legend, same frame size. In the capital the city grows over farmland. On the coast, urbanisation advances over farmland. In the mountains, forest grows a little, and so does farming.

5

Each place: the slider, the rings and the flow

Pick a station. The map shows its 5 km disc at both dates, with the bar between them. Below, the composition in rings of 1, 2, 5 and 10 km shows whether the change stays near the station or reaches farther. The flow diagram (sankey) shows where each 1985 class went.

6

Click a station, or choose one, and see its series

Each station has its own annual series of temperature, rain and apparent temperature, from months with at least 80% of data. The chart shows the chosen station’s series and its trend with the statistical test.

7

What changes in each region

To compare regions whose stations have different years, each station is compared with its own mean, and the mean of those differences becomes the regional line. Choose the variable.

8

The heat island, year by year

The difference between surface temperature in a 5 km disc and in a 20 to 30 km ring around each station, measured by MODIS. Drag the year and switch between day and night. Surface temperature is not air temperature, and the ring includes lowland and sea.

9

Landslide and flooding are not the same sum

Landslide depends mostly on relief; flooding depends on valley floors and the city. Regional heavy rain weighs on both, but it does not enter as a class in either. Choose the risk to see its layer and the table for each station. The class thresholds are choices, not measurements.

10

Who records biodiversity, and how much

Species records published in GBIF for each region and in 5 km discs around each station. Beyond volume, the table shows who sends them: how much of the output comes from the ten and the hundred most active names, and whether the observation is human or from collections.

11

How much of each region is in protected areas

The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA, from UNEP-WCMC and IUCN), inside each region, and the forest of 1985 and 2025 inside and outside them. The comparison shows where the forest is; it does not measure the effect of protection.

12

Support and counterpoint in the literature

Literature on Florianópolis points to more heatwaves in the 2010s and warmer nights in the conurbation. Our 2003–2025 data show a rise in the number of heatwave months in the metro region; maximum temperature has no clear trend, and the coast’s minimum falls, without significance.

13

Warmer summer nights

In Florianópolis many people feel summer nights are warmer. The data show more heatwave months in the metro region (p = 0.006); the minimum shows no significant trend, which helps separate night heat from day heat.

14

The UmaTerra tools, and what each added

This reading uses three tools from the platform. If you research or write a report on an area, each can feed your work: biodiversity through GBIF, protected areas, and each place’s image through land use.

umaterra.com.br · Florianópolis
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What this story does not say

The same question in three metros: Houston, Goiânia and Kelowna → And a mountain region with another winter: the Okanagan → The same ruler in Rio de Janeiro: lakes, mountains and lowland →

Written with Claude, by Anthropic, from INMET, MapBiomas, MODIS, SRTM, GBIF and WDPA data read through Earth Engine, the climate-shift database and UmaTerra’s own tools, and from the sources cited. No number was typed by hand: each comes from the builders in the story’s working folder.

References

  1. Stations: INMET, stations table of the climate-shift database (8 stations in 3 regions; Curitibanos and Ituporanga were left out). Monthly series: monthly_summary_comprehensive table, with the completeness ratio of each month.
  2. MapBiomas Collection 11, annual land-use mapping of Brazil, 1985–2025, read through Earth Engine (mapbiomas_brazil_collection11_coverage_v3). Brazil: brasil.mapbiomas.org.
  3. UFSC (2019). Climatology and projections of heatwaves in the southern capitals of Brazil, dissertation. repositorio.ufsc.br (in Portuguese). Read from search; check.
  4. Steadman, R. G. (1994). Norms of apparent temperature in Australia. Australian Meteorological Magazine, 43, 1–16. Used in its simplified form (monthly mean temperature, humidity and wind); it is an approximation, not the official heat index. (Check the title and volume.)
  5. Wan, Z.; Hook, S.; Hulley, G. (2021). MOD11A2 MODIS/Terra Land Surface Temperature/Emissivity 8-Day L3 Global 1km, v061. DOI 10.5067/MODIS/MOD11A2.061. Surface temperature, not air temperature.
  6. Farr, T. G. et al. (2007). The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. Reviews of Geophysics 45, RG2004. DOI 10.1029/2005RG000183. 30 m relief (SRTM, USGS/SRTMGL1_003). Slope and valley floors are proxies, not a susceptibility map.
  7. Literature cited in the text:
    • UFSC (2019), dissertation on heatwaves in Curitiba, Florianópolis and Porto Alegre. link (in Portuguese). Read from search.
    • Revista Brasileira de Geografia Física (UFPE). Heatwaves in southern capitals over 30 years of data, Mann-Kendall test; winter has the most heatwaves. link (in Portuguese). Read from search.
    • Geosul (2026). Heat island in the Florianópolis conurbation; warmer nights. PDF (in Portuguese). Read from search; check the year.
    • UFSC. The thermal field of Florianópolis: regimes, variability and trends. link (in Portuguese). Read from the title.
  8. GBIF.org. GBIF Occurrence Search API, aggregated counts (facets) of published records, 2000–2025, in each region’s box and in 5 km discs around the stations, queried with Naturametrics’ GBIF tool. Counts of published records, not field effort. gbif.org.
  9. UNEP-WCMC and IUCN. Protected Planet: the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), current polygons (WCMC/WDPA/current/polygons) read through Earth Engine, for Brazil, inside each region’s box. Declared area (REP_AREA), not measured. protectedplanet.net.
  10. UmaTerra tools used in this story: Naturametrics (GBIF tool), Yvynation (protected lands, same path as WDPA) and Camposcope (rural property analysis, not used in this version).