Analyses of the Zagreb Grič observatory air temperatures indices for the period 1881 to 2017

Abstract

The paper studies time series of characteristic (minimum, mean, and maximum) daily, monthly, and yearly air temperatures measured at the Zagreb Grič Observatory in the period from 1 Jan. 1881 to 31 Dec. 2017. The following five air temperatures indices (ATI) are analysed: (1) absolute minimum yearly, monthly, and daily; (2) mean yearly, monthly, and daily minimum; (3) average mean yearly, monthly, and daily; (4) mean yearly, monthly, and daily maximum; (5) absolute maximum yearly, monthly, and daily. Methods of Rescaled Adjusted Partial Sums (RAPS), regression and correlation analyses, F-tests, and t-tests are used in order to describe changes in air temperature regimes over 137 years. Using the RAPS method the five analysed yearly ATI time series durations of 137 years were divided into two sub-periods. The analyses made in this paper showed that warming of minimum air temperatures started in 1970, mean air temperatures in 1988, and maximum air temperatures in 1998. Results of t-tests show an extreme statistically significant jump in the average air-temperature values in the second (recent time) sub-periods. Results of the t-tests of monthly temperatures show statistically significant differences between practically all five pairs (except in two cases) of analysed monthly ATI subseries for the period from January to August. From September to December the differences for most of pairs (except in six cases) of the analysed monthly ATI subseries are not statistically significant. It can be concluded that the urban heat island influenced the increase in recent temperatures more strongly than global warming. It seems that urbanisation firstly and chiefly influenced the minimum temperatures, as well as that Zagreb’s urbanisation had a bigger impact on minimum temperatures than on maximums. Increasing trend in time series of maximum temperatures started 20 years later.