Taylor, Charles E.
Abstract:
Interest in monitoring global climate has increased in recent years as the potential
implications of climate change have come into the conscious of the public.
Climate models and observations have shown that the polar regions are especially
sensitive to climate change. This is especially concerning since the polar regions could
experience several positive feedbacks as a result of increasing surface temperatures
and/or change in their variability. The purpose of this study is to analyze surface air
temperature data from nine weather stations in Arctic Canada to gain a better
understanding of the status of the region’s climate. Nine stations spread across the
Canadian Arctic region were chosen from a larger database of homogenized surface
temperature time series extracted from the National Climate Data Archive. The nine
stations were chosen based on their length (equal or greater than 50 years). A multi-scale
analysis was conducted to explore whether surface temperature patterns in Arctic Canada
appear to be changing from the point of view of overall trends and temporal variability in
the region. Pattern change was analyzed using a height-height correlation analysis of
time series of different lengths. Statistical patterns examined using these methods
include mean, standard deviation, range, moments on n[superscript th], and the Hurst-exponent (for
analyzing pattern persistence). The results indicate that there are spatial correlations in
pattern persistence, and that the correlations change over time.