Estimating Climate Trends : Application to United States Plant Hardiness Zones
Author
Source
Issue
Vol. 2012, Issue 2012 (31 Dec. 2012), pp.1-9, 9 p.
Publisher
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Publication Date
2012-07-24
Country of Publication
Egypt
No. of Pages
9
Main Subjects
Abstract EN
The United States Department of Agriculture classifies plant hardiness zones based on mean annual minimum temperatures over some past period (currently 1976–2005).
Since temperatures are changing, these values may benefit from updating.
I outline a multistep methodology involving imputation of missing station values, geostatistical interpolation, and time series smoothing to update a climate variable’s expected value compared to a climatology period and apply it to estimating annual minimum temperature change over the coterminous United States.
I show using hindcast experiments that trend estimation gives more accurate predictions of minimum temperatures 1-2 years in advance compared to the previous 30 years’ mean alone.
I find that annual minimum temperature increased roughly 2.5 times faster than mean temperature (~2.0 K versus ~0.8 K since 1970), and is already an average of 1.2 ± 0.5 K (regionally up to ~2 K) above the 1976–2005 mean, so that much of the country belongs to warmer hardiness zones compared to the current map.
The methods developed may also be applied to estimate changes in other climate variables and geographic regions.
American Psychological Association (APA)
Krakauer, Nir Y.. 2012. Estimating Climate Trends : Application to United States Plant Hardiness Zones. Advances in Meteorology،Vol. 2012, no. 2012, pp.1-9.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-469416
Modern Language Association (MLA)
Krakauer, Nir Y.. Estimating Climate Trends : Application to United States Plant Hardiness Zones. Advances in Meteorology No. 2012 (2012), pp.1-9.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-469416
American Medical Association (AMA)
Krakauer, Nir Y.. Estimating Climate Trends : Application to United States Plant Hardiness Zones. Advances in Meteorology. 2012. Vol. 2012, no. 2012, pp.1-9.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-469416
Data Type
Journal Articles
Language
English
Notes
Includes bibliographical references
Record ID
BIM-469416