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Analysis of Anomalies and Trends of Climate Change Indices in the State of Zacatecas, Mexico
Version 1
: Received: 6 March 2020 / Approved: 7 March 2020 / Online: 7 March 2020 (15:56:50 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Pita-Díaz, O.; Ortega-Gaucin, D. Analysis of Anomalies and Trends of Climate Change Indices in Zacatecas, Mexico. Climate 2020, 8, 55. Pita-Díaz, O.; Ortega-Gaucin, D. Analysis of Anomalies and Trends of Climate Change Indices in Zacatecas, Mexico. Climate 2020, 8, 55.
Abstract
Sufficient evidence is currently available to demonstrate the reality of the warming of our planet's climate system. Global warming has different effects on climate at the regional and local levels. The detection of changes in extreme events using instrumental data provides further evidence of such warming and allows for the characterization of its local manifestations. The present study analyzes changes in temperature and precipitation extremes in the Mexican state of Zacatecas using climate change indices developed by the Expert Team on Climate Change Detection, Monitoring and Indices (ETCCDI). We studied a 40-year period (1976-2015) using annual and seasonal time scales. Maximum and minimum temperature data were used, as well as precipitation statistics from the Mexican climatology database (CLICOM) provided by the Mexican meteorological service. Weather stations with at least 80% of data availability for the selected study period were selected; these databases were subjected to quality control, homogenization, and data filling using Climatol, which runs in the R programming language. These homogenized series were used to obtain daily grides of the three variables at a resolution of 1.3 km. Results reveal important changes in temperature-related indices, such as the increase in maximum temperature and the decrease in minimum temperature. Irregular variability was observed in the case of precipitation, which could be associated with low-frequency oscillations such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation. The possible impact of these changes in temperature and the increased irregularity of precipitation could have a negative impact on the agricultural sector, especially given that the state of Zacatecas is the largest national bean producer. The most important problems in the short term will be related to the difficulty of adapting to these rapid changes and the new climate scenario, which will pose new challenges in the future.
Keywords
climate change; temperature; precipitation; anomaly; trends; Zacatecas; Mexico
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Atmospheric Science and Meteorology
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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