Title: Long-term mean monthly temperatures trends of the United Arab Emirates

Authors: Ali Umran Komuscu

Addresses: State Meteorological Service, Department of Weather Forecasting, Kalaba, Ankara 06120, Turkey; Global Aerospace Logistics, LLC, P.O. Box 128626, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Abstract: The Gulf region, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has been experiencing warming trends since late 1980s. This study investigates non-stationary behaviour of the long-term mean monthly temperature series of the UAE by time series analysis. The last three decades are distinctly characterised with definite rising trends in the temperatures in majority of the stations, with exception of the Al Ain station which indicated cooling temperature trends. Cumulative warming varied between 0.3 and 2.8°C, with more warming observed in the coastal stations. Marked shifts in the mean temperatures were observed especially in the Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, Sharjah, Dubai, and Ras'al Khaima stations at 6-10 year time periods. The time series analysis of the temperature series, in general, indicated non-randomness, implying periodicity with sinusoidal component. The periodograms were characterised 12-month periodicity (varying seasonally) with the monthly series and 4-16 years of periodicity with the annual series. The peak frequencies of the monthly series corresponded to a seasonal periodical component. The 16-year cycles are more pronounced in the stations with short duration data while the smaller cycles are peculiar to the longer durations.

Keywords: long term trends; mean monthly temperatures; UAE; United Arab Emirates; autocorrelation; periodogram; spectral analysis; global warming.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGW.2017.080987

International Journal of Global Warming, 2017 Vol.11 No.1, pp.1 - 22

Received: 28 Apr 2014
Accepted: 17 Dec 2014
Published online: 14 Dec 2016 *

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