ANALYSIS OF TEMPERATURE, PRECIPITATION AND POTENTIAL EVAPOTRANSPIRATION TRENDS IN SOUTHERN OLTENIA IN THE CONTEXT OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Remus PRĂVĂLIE

ABSTRACT: The analysis of a territory’s climate trends are currently major research interests, as this is a viable method for identifying changes in climatic parameters against the background of global climate change, which at the same time can provide basic support for environmental system adjustments. The present study aims to identify the temporal trends of the main climate parameters (temperature, precipitation and potential evapotranspiration) in southern Oltenia, based on climate data provided by five regional weather stations (Drobeta Turnu Severin, Calafat, Craiova, Bechet and Turnu Măgurele). The analysis covers the 1961 - 2009 period, and the nonparametric Mann-Kendall test was used as trend quantification method. The entire study was conducted on three temporal analysis scales – annual, seasonal (spring, summer, autumn and winter) and monthly. The results showed specificities for each climatic parameter on each of the three temporal scales. For the average temperature, trends are mainly upward on annual and seasonal scales (generally statistically significant), except for autumn, when a slight cooling trend lacking statistical significance was found. The same general pattern was identified for evapotranspiration, save for the fact that autumn’s negative trends are statistically relevant. For rainfall, while trends are generally decreasing annually and seasonally, except for autumn (characterized by positive trends), its dynamics status is uncertain as a result of the general lack of statistical significance. The monthly regime analysis revealed visibly more pronounced trend dynamics for all three climatic parameters.

Keywords: Southern Oltenia, Climate change, Climate parameters, Trends, Mann-Kendall

Full article here