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Temperature and precipitation trends in Canada during the 20 th century. Atmosphere-Ocean 38: 3 (2000)
| Citations: | 32 - 1 self |
BibTeX
@MISC{Zhang00temperatureand,
author = {Xuebin Zhang and Lucie A. Vincent and W. D. Hogg and Ain Niitsoo},
title = {Temperature and precipitation trends in Canada during the 20 th century. Atmosphere-Ocean 38: 3},
year = {2000}
}
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Abstract
abstract Trends in Canadian temperature and precipitation during the 20th century are analyzed using recently updated and adjusted station data. Six elements, maximum, minimum and mean temperatures along with diurnal temperature range (DTR), precipitation totals and ratio of snowfall to total precipitation are investigated. Anomalies from the 1961–1990 reference period were first obtained at individual stations, and were then used to generate gridded datasets for subsequent trend analyses. Trends were computed for 1900–1998 for southern Canada (south of 608N), and separately for 1950–1998 for the entire country, due to insufficient data in the high arctic prior to the 1950s. From 1900–1998, the annual mean temperature has increased between 0.5 and 1.58C in the south. The warming is greater in minimum temperature than in maximum temperature in the first half of the century, resulting in a decrease of DTR. The greatest warming occurred in the west, with statistically significant increases mostly seen during spring and summer periods. Annual precipitation has also increased from 5 % to 35 % in southern Canada over the same period. In general, the ratio of snowfall to total precipitation has been increasing due mostly to the increase in winter precipitation which generally falls as snow and an increase of ratio
Keyphrases
precipitation trend th century southern canada total precipitation maximum temperature diurnal temperature range winter precipitation gridded datasets high arctic prior mean temperature insufficient data minimum temperature canadian temperature abstract trend station data entire country annual mean temperature precipitation total reference period first half 20th century individual station annual precipitation subsequent trend analysis summer period significant increase
