Observed Trends in Surface Air Temperatures and Their Extremes in Thailand from 1970 to 2009

Abstract

Based on updated quality controlled daily records, extreme events were defined using temperature indices proposed by the Commission for Climatology/Climate Variability and Predictability project's Expert Team on Climate Change Detection, Monitoring and Indices, and temporal trends during the 1970-2009 period were examined in Thailand. Results revealed that Thailand has indeed experienced significant country-wide warming over the last four decades, and extreme events associated with both the cold and warm extremes of daily minimum and maximum temperature distributions have changed accordingly. Trends in temperature indices showed much spatial trend coherence and widespread significant warming, generally consistent with the regional evidence recently documented in other Asia-Pacific Network countries. Significant upward trends in temperature extreme indices were found in the annual number of warm nights and days, the annual occurrence of warm spells, tropical nights, summer days, and the highest and lowest values of daily minimum temperatures. In contrast, significant downward trends were observed in the annual number of cold nights and days, the annual occurrence of cold spells, diurnal temperature range and annual extreme temperature range. Changes in these temperature extreme indices were consistent with a significant shift in the temperature distribution toward warmer conditions over the recent decades. To address changes in Thailand's temperature more clearly, however, the plausible underlying mechanisms, including urbanization effects, need to be further studied.

Observed changes in extreme temperature and precipitation over Indonesia

“…It was observed that the annual number of hot days and warm nights had increased significantly whereas the annual number of cool days and cold nights had decreased significantly, consistently over the whole Asia Pacific Region. Moreover, at the national level, for example in Thailand (Limjirakan and Limsakul, ) and in the Philippines (Cinco et al , ), similar results of spatially coherent warming signals were documented. Siswanto et al () analysed 134 years of daily temperature data collected at the Jakarta Observatory station and reported that the maximum temperature had increased at a rate of 2.12 °C per century, which was larger than that of the minimum temperature.…”

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“…[8] reported a significant decreasing trend in the USA, Europe, Middle Asian and Siberian regions of the former Soviet Union for the period of . Decreasing trends were also reported in India [1,17,52], Canada [2], Italy [10], Japan [12], China [13][14], Australia [11], and Thailand [15][16]. [53] pointed out that evaporation for New Zealand was decreasing 2 mm annually since 1970.…”

“…Increasing trends in evaporation were reported in Israel [3], Brazil [4], eastern Asia including Tibetan Plateau, China and Japan [5], western Africa [6] and Iran [7]. On the other hand, decreasing trends were also reported in the USA [8], the USA and former Soviet Union [9], Italy [10], Australia [11], Japan [12], China [13][14], Thailand [15][16], Canada [2], and India [1,17]. In Turkey, although many researchers [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33] have investigated climatic changes in temperature and precipitation, the same interest has not been shown for evaporation.…”

Seasonal Water Relations and Leaf Temperature in a Deciduous Dipterocarp Forest in Northeastern Thailand

“…Daily mean maximum air temperatures in these months reach 38-40 • C, providing severe heat stress under continuing drought conditions [12]. There is additional concern for the future of this and other forest communities in Southeast Asia because of potential impacts of increases in mean and extreme temperatures that are predicted to occur in the future under models of global change [16,17].…”