Trends and Extremes Analysis of Daily Weather Data from a Site in the Capitanata Plain (Southern Italy)

Abstract

The impacts of the climate change for agriculture is an ambitious and unresolved topic due to the complexity of the natural phenomena. The high variability of the Mediterranean basin does not allow us to generalize with enough certainty the results obtained from other researches and other locations. Therefore, a site specific analysis in Capitanata plain was conducted. The aim is to provide a detailed picture of recent change in climate regime in one of the most important agricultural area of South Italy. Climate analysis was carried out and several indices of extreme events were studied on the basis of temperature and precipitation observations registered at experimental station ‘Podere 124’ (CRA-SCA). The period under study is 1979-2008. Increasing trends were identified for the summer season with an intensification of the number of heat waves.