Changes in the daily range of the air temperature in the mountainous part of Slovakia within the possible context of global warming

Abstract

Mean global and regional air temperatures have increased in the last several decades more than at any time during the history of instrumental measurement. Because of changes in the energy balance of the daily regime of the Earth's surface, it seems that the daily minimum temperature will increase more than the daily maximum one. The general theoretical analysis have indicated the daily range (TR) of air temperatures decrease, but they are also influenced by several other factors such as topography, wind, solar radiation, cloudiness, humidity, soil moisture, upwind and lee effects, etc. This paper contains a sample from an analysis of past conditions showing changes in TR at several Slovak stations from 1961–2010 and possible changes in TR up to the time frame of the year 2100 using climate change scenarios based on four climatic models adopted in Slovakia (global CGCM3.1 and ECHAM5, regional KNMI and MPI) and three emission scenarios (IPCC SRES A2, B1 and A1B). The trends and correlations of daily air temperature ranges with other climatic variables were analyzed.

Keywords

• Climate change
• daily temperature range
• climate change scenarios and impacts