Analysis of air temperature trends in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

The paper analyzes the air temperature characteristics in Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to identify recent trends in mean air temperature. Trends in annual, seasonal and monthly mean air temperatures during 1961-2015 periods were determined based on data from sixteen meteorological stations. MAKESENS procedure (Salmi, et al., 2002), which uses the nonparametric Mann-Kendall test and the nonparametric Sen's method, was applied on time series of annual, seasonal and monthly mean air temperatures to assess the trend magnitude and its statistical significance. Given the results, the warming trend is present all over Bosnia and Herzegovina. Significant positive trends in annual and summer temperatures were detected over the entire territory (p<0.01). Positive winter and spring trends are largely significant (p<0.01 or p<0.05), whereas autumn trends are low and insignificant. The highest increase was registered in June-August and December-January periods. In some areas, a low negative trend was present in September and November. A significant positive correlation between East-Atlantic pattern index and temperature was determined over the entire territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina throughout the year. Winter and spring temperatures were also significantly related to the North Atlantic Oscillation index and Arctic Oscillation index, respectively.

Keywords

• mean monthly
• seasonal and annual temperatures
• temperature trend
• MAKESENS
• climate change
• Northern Hemisphere teleconnection patterns
• Bosnia and Herzegovina