Journal article
On the impacts of computing daily temperatures as the average of the daily minimum and maximum temperatures
Atmospheric research, Vol.198, pp.145-150
12/01/2017
DOI: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2017.08.020
Abstract
Daily temperature values are generally computed as the average of the daily minimum and maximum observations, which can lead to biases in the estimation of daily averaged values. This study examines the impacts of these biases on the calculation of climatology and trends in temperature extremes at 409 sites in North America with at least 25years of complete hourly records. Our results show that the calculation of daily temperature based on the average of minimum and maximum daily readings leads to an overestimation of the daily values of ~10+% when focusing on extremes and values above (below) high (low) thresholds. Moreover, the effects of the data processing method on trend estimation are generally small, even though the use of the daily minimum and maximum readings reduces the power of trend detection (~5–10% fewer trends detected in comparison with the reference data).
•Daily temperature is often computed as the average of daily minimum/maximum values.•This data processing introduces biases.•This processing leads to an overestimation of the values of ~10+ % for extremes.•The effects on trend estimation are generally small (~5–10% fewer trends detected).
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- On the impacts of computing daily temperatures as the average of the daily minimum and maximum temperatures
- Creators
- Gabriele Villarini - University of IowaAbdou Khouakhi - University of IowaEvan Cunningham - Grinnell College
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Atmospheric research, Vol.198, pp.145-150
- Publisher
- Elsevier B.V
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.atmosres.2017.08.020
- ISSN
- 0169-8095
- eISSN
- 1873-2895
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000001, name: National Science Foundation, award: AGS-1349827; name: Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Program; name: Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC)–Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, award: W913E5-16-C-0002; name: Grinnell College Internship Program
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 12/01/2017
- Academic Unit
- IIHR--Hydroscience and Engineering; Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Record Identifier
- 9984197454002771
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