Changing temperature and rainfall gradients in the British Uplands

Abstract

Climate change is likely to be experienced differently at higher elevations than in lowland areas. Observations of recent change can increase understanding of how changes will be realised. We examined changes in temperature lapse rates and rainfall gradients between pairs of stations, lowland and upland, across the UK. Seasonal and annual changes were investigated, because there may well be shorter-term changes which are not reflected in the overall annual average. Significant changes in both temperature and rainfall were observed, but the pattern of changes was spatially and seasonally variable across the UK. In general, temperature changes were stronger in winter than in summer, and minima rose more than maxima in the uplands, whereas the changes were similar between minima and maxima in the lowlands. Most (but not all) upland stations showed significant increases in rainfall totals in winter that were greater than those experienced in the nearby lowlands. However, variations in seasonal trends of lapse rates and rainfall gradients are sufficiently large to warrant concern about existing climate change projections and the downscaling of regional and global climate models. Specifically, analysis at an annual time scale may mask important seasonal patterns. For countries where the data network is dominated by lowland stations but a significant proportion of the landscape is upland, this poses a problem for estimating temperature change over a large proportion of the landscape. Given the lack of a consistent pattern of changes, we advocate an extension of climate monitoring in the uplands in order to detail ongoing climate change in the different upland areas.

Altitudinal temperature lapse rates in an Alpine valley: trends and the influence of season and weather patterns

“…We found a similar positive trend for minimum and maximum temperatures of Zugspitze. For Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the increase of maxima was more pronounced than for minima, which is not fully in agreement with the results obtained from some stations in the North Pennines (Burt and Holden, 2010). In Northern Scotland, increases in annual mean maxima were stronger than those for annual mean minima (Burt and Holden, 2010).…”

“…For Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the increase of maxima was more pronounced than for minima, which is not fully in agreement with the results obtained from some stations in the North Pennines (Burt and Holden, 2010). In Northern Scotland, increases in annual mean maxima were stronger than those for annual mean minima (Burt and Holden, 2010). By evaluating temperature 551 data from over 1000 high elevation stations across the globe, Pepin and Lundquist (2008) found more differentiated patterns due to the snow-ice-albedo feedback.…”

Restoration effects on water table depths and CO2 fluxes from climatically marginal blanket bog

“…There is the potential for differences in altitude between sites to affect their CO2 fluxes due to environmental lapse rates in air temperature and rainfall (e.g. Burt and Holden 2010) however the two sites with slope stabilisation (SL.HB-G and SL.Ge-G) were 50 m apart vertically and yet had statistically indistinguishable results. This suggests that lapse rates may be less important than the effects of restoration in this setting.…”

Spatio-Temporal Variation and Monsoon Effect on the Temperature Lapse Rate of a Subtropical Island

“…Specifically, the linear regression model of the TLR in SEr was not statistically significant in the winter half-year (see Supplementary Table 7; p-values 0.065 to 0.139). The weaker relationship between temperature and elevation in the SEr was attributed to the insufficient number and nonhomogeneous distribution of stations, as Rolland (2003) and Burt and Holden (2010) concluded. Figure 4a illustrates the areas covered by Nr and Sr.…”

“…However, continuous and complete temperature records are often unavailable, especially in mountainous areas, where meteorological stations are usually sparse (Chiu et al 2009;Burt and Holden 2010). Because air temperature gradually decreases with elevation in the troposphere, the change rate, called the temperature lapse rate (TLR), can facilitate the spatial interpolation of temperature at a given place and time to generate a climate grid (e.g., Bolstad et al 1998;Stahl et al 2006;Cannon et al 2012).…”