Long-term trends in extreme air temperature indices in Ireland

Ireland has a rich heritage of long-term air temperature observations. The analysis of long-term historical instrumental records is essential to assessing extreme air temperature indices and examining modern climate warming within a historical context. This presentation highlights the methodologies for data rescue, quality control, homogenisation, and assessment of trends in extreme air temperature indices back to the 19^th century.

This research assessed the frequency, duration, intensity and geographical distribution of the daily extreme air temperature indices recommended by the ETCCDI (Expert Team on Climate Change Detection and Indices) based on long-term rescued, quality-controlled and homogenised maximum and minimum air temperature series across Ireland.

Significant increasing trends were assessed in the seasonal and annual maximum and minimum air temperature series. Additionally, significant increasing trends were assessed in the warm nights (+7.5 nights), warm days (+6.8 days), warm spell duration index (+3.9 days), growing season length (+22 days), coldest night (+2.7 °C) and coldest day (+1.5 °C) in the period 1885–2018 in Ireland. Significant decreasing trends were identified in the frost days (−13.7 days), cold days (−9.3 days), cold nights (−7 nights), cold spell duration index (−6.9 days) and diurnal air temperature range (−0.1 °C) in the same period in Ireland.

 

References

Mateus, C., Potito, A. and Curley, M., 2020. Reconstruction of a long‐term historical daily maximum and minimum air temperature network dataset for Ireland (1831‐1968). Geoscience Data Journal, 7(2), pp.102-115.

Mateus, C., 2021. Searching for historical meteorological observations on the Island of Ireland. Weather, 76(5), pp.160-165.

Mateus, C., Potito, A. and Curley, M., 2021. Engaging secondary school students in climate data rescue through service‐learning partnerships. Weather, 76(4), pp.113-118.

Mateus, C. and Potito, A., 2021. Development of a quality-controlled and homogenised long-term daily maximum and minimum air temperature network dataset for Ireland. Climate, 9(11), p.158.

Mateus, C. and Potito, A., 2022. Long-term trends in daily extreme air temperature indices in Ireland from 1885 to 2018. Weather and Climate Extremes, 36, p.100464.