Contemporary temperature fluctuation in urban areas of pakistan

Abstract

Annual temperature data from thirty meteorological stations in Pakistan-s major urban areas were selected to investigate trends in annual average and maximum temperature during 1970-2009. A combination of parametric and non-parametric tests including linear regression, the Mann-Kendall trend test and Sen-s slope estimator was used for the analysis. Annual average and maximum temperature series showed an overall increasing trend for 90% of the stations and a decreasing trend for 10% of the stations in the study area. The highest significant increment of annual average temperature was observed at Gilgit, Hyderabad, Quetta and Lasbela stations at the rate of 0.49 °C per decade. The highest increment of annual maximum temperature was obtained at Chitral, Gilgit, Nawabshah and Quetta at the rate of 0.31 °C per decade. According to simple linear regression and the Mann-Kendall test, the annual average temperature showed a significant increasing trend for 43% of the stations (at a 0.001 level of significance) and 23% of the stations (at the 0.05 level). Annual maximum temperature showed a significant increasing trend for 26% of the stations (at the 0.001 level of significance) and 23% of the stations (at the 0.05 level). In general, the results showed increasing trends for the considered parameters, although annual average temperature showed a higher increasing rate than annual maximum temperature during the study period.