Analysis of Temperature Change Signatures for a Transect Along Eastern North America

Climate change signatures are recognized throughout the globe, with trends of increasing temperatures. Often, the changes are most pronounced in the transitional seasons, spring and fall. In this study, we examined records from 16 cities along a north-south transect of eastern North America. The transect begins in Kuujjuaq Quebec, Canada, ending in Atlanta GA, USA. Selection criteria included cities with data that had a minimal range 1950-2012, and had moderate distance the Atlantic Ocean or Lake Ontario. If cities along the transect were close to bodies of water, a second city with similar latitude was selected for comparison. Results show that many of the cities have significant increases in March mean temperatures, but there were signs of latitudinal influence. June, September and December typically did not show significant temperature trends with time with the exception of a few cities in September. An additional analysis looked at the average monthly temperature over time. This data was plotted to show the mean for the entire period and one standard deviation above and below the mean. In March, a change occurred between 1972 and 1973, with a greater number of warm years post 1972. This pattern was significant for all cities in March, but rarely for the other months studied.