Monday, 10 February 2003
Analysis of diurnal and seasonal cycles in climatic trends for records with changes of observation times
We present a new technique to analyze diurnal and seasonal cycles of
climatic trends in records with arbitrary observation times. This
technique produces unprecedented opportunities to analyze and visualize
climatic change. There is no restriction that the climatic process be
stationary, and records can contain seasonal and diurnal cycles in the
moments of the statistical distribution (means, variances, and higher
moments) of the observed variables and their trends. To approximate
such processes we use superposition of a limited number of Fourier
harmonics of diurnal and annual cycles with linear (or polynomial)
trends. A least-squares method is used to estimate the unknown
coefficients. The technique, when applied to multi-decadal observations
of a number representative stations, reveals complicated
seasonal-diurnal patterns of trends in means and variances of
meteorological variables. The technique can be applied to historical
observations of meteorological stations with many changes in their times
of observation.
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