Spatial pattern of the unidirectional trends in thermal bioclimatic indicators in Iran

Abstract

Changes in bioclimatic indicators can provide valuable information on how global warming induced climate change can affect humans, ecology and the environment. Trends in thermal bioclimatic indicators over the diverse climate of Iran were assessed in this study to comprehend their spatio-temporal changes in different climates. The gridded temperature data of Princeton Global Meteorological Forcing with a spatial resolution of 0.25° and temporal extent of 1948-2010 was used for this purpose. Autocorrelation and wavelets analyses were conducted to assess the presence of self-similarity and cycles in the data series. The modified version of the Mann-Kendall (MMK) test was employed to estimate unidirectional trends in 11 thermal bioclimatic indicators through removing the influence of natural cycles on trend significance. A large decrease in the number of grid points showing significant trends was noticed for the MMK in respect to the classical Mann-Kendall (MK) test which indicates that the natural variability of the climate should be taken into consideration in bioclimatic trend analyses in Iran. The unidirectional trends obtained using the MMK test revealed changes in almost all of the bioclimatic indicators in different parts of Iran, which indicates rising temperature have significantly affected the bioclimate of the country. The semi-dry region along the Persian Gulf in the south and mountainous region in the northeast were found to be more affected in terms of the changes in a number of bioclimatic indicators.