Stefanini, C.; Becherini, F.; della Valle, A.; Rech, F.; Zecchini, F.; Camuffo, D. Homogeneity Assessment and Correction Methodology for the 1980–2022 Daily Temperature Series in Padua, Italy. Climate2023, 11, 244.
Stefanini, C.; Becherini, F.; della Valle, A.; Rech, F.; Zecchini, F.; Camuffo, D. Homogeneity Assessment and Correction Methodology for the 1980–2022 Daily Temperature Series in Padua, Italy. Climate 2023, 11, 244.
Stefanini, C.; Becherini, F.; della Valle, A.; Rech, F.; Zecchini, F.; Camuffo, D. Homogeneity Assessment and Correction Methodology for the 1980–2022 Daily Temperature Series in Padua, Italy. Climate2023, 11, 244.
Stefanini, C.; Becherini, F.; della Valle, A.; Rech, F.; Zecchini, F.; Camuffo, D. Homogeneity Assessment and Correction Methodology for the 1980–2022 Daily Temperature Series in Padua, Italy. Climate 2023, 11, 244.
Abstract
Meteorological observations over the last four decades are of paramount importance to investigate the ongoing climate change. The assessment of the reliability of any climatic time series is thus mandatory to draw correct conclusions. This evaluation involves homogeneity tests to detect artificial discontinuities whose identification is facilitated by metadata availability. In this work, daily minimum and maximum temperature measurements collected in Padua, Italy, between 1980 and 2022, are examined. Hourly observations began in 1993 and since the aim is to study long term behavior of the temperature, the focus is on daily averages and extremes. Over this period, the weather station of Padua center underwent many changes, in location or instrument; therefore, some tests have been used to identify and remove the effects of these variations and obtain a homogeneous time series. The homogeneity tests applied must be able to identify change-points both in the middle and at the extremes of the series. Some well-known absolute tests have been applied to investigate shift in the mean value: Standard Normal Homogeneity test (SNH), Buishand U and range tests, Pettitt test, F-test, STARS. Some relative tests have been applied too, which are generally more reliable than absolute tests, because they consider the information from neighboring stations. As relative tests rely on the homogeneity and quality of the reference series, several nearby stations and two reanalysis datasets (ERA5 and MERIDA) have been considered, to enhance the picture of the local situation and provide more robust conclusions. The applied tests identify change-points in the years in which a change in instrument or location of the station have occurred, confirming that these changes have compromised the homogeneity of the series. The sub-series obtained splitting the observations in correspondence of these change-points have been homogenized with respect a selected period; corrections must be applied also to future measurements to extend the time series properly.
Keywords
homogeneity tests; daily temperature series; correction methodology; climate change
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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