A comparison of the performance of different innovative trend assessment approaches for air temperature and precipitation data: an application to Elazığ Province (Turkey)

In this study, the temporal variability of monthly total precipitation and monthly average temperature data of Palu station were analyzed. In addition to statistical analysis such as Mann–Kendall (MK) and SR, innovative polygon trend analysis (IPTA), innovative trend analysis (ITA), and combination of Wilcoxon test and scatter diagram (CWTSD) methods were used in the study. A total of 24 trend analyses (for 12 months of precipitation and temperature data) were conducted for each method used for temperature and precipitation parameters in the study. Looking at the results of these methods, a decreasing trend was detected only in December for precipitation data, common to all methods. For temperature data, an increasing trend was detected only in February and March. With the application of the IPTA, an increasing trend in some months and a decreasing trend in other months were detected for the two parameters. The Wilcoxon test exhibits significant consistency with the MK and SR in terms of the statistical trend, according to the examination of temperature and precipitation data using the CWTSD approach, which is relatively recent. Furthermore, the visual trend analysis demonstrates high consistency between the NO-ITA and Şen-ITA approaches.