Trends in Temperatures in Latin America: A Time-Series Perspective Based on Fractional Integration

In this article, we examine the time-series properties of the temperatures in Latin America. We look at the presence of time trends in the context of potential long-memory processes, looking at the average, maximum, and minimum values from 1901 to 2021. Our results indicate that when looking at the average data, there is a tendency to return to the mean value in all cases. However, it is noted that in the cases of Guatemala, Mexico, and Brazil, which are the countries with the highest degree of integration, the process of reversion could take longer than in the remaining countries. We also point out that the time trend coefficient is significantly positive in practically all cases, especially in temperatures in the Caribbean islands such as Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, and the British Virgin Islands. When analyzing the maximum and minimum temperatures, the highest degrees of integration are observed in the minimum values, and the highest values are obtained again in Brazil, Guatemala, and Mexico. The time trend coefficients are significantly positive in almost all cases, with the only two exceptions being Bolivia and Paraguay. Looking at the range (i.e., the difference between maximum and minimum temperatures), evidence of orders of integration above 0.5 is found in nine countries (Aruba, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Venezuela), implying that shocks in the range will take longer to disappear than in the rest of the countries.