Regional climate change: Trend analysis of temperature and precipitation series at selected Canadian sites

Global climate change does not necessarily imply that temperature or precipitation is increasing at specific locations. The hypothesis of increasing temperature and precipitation trends associated with global climate change is tested using actual annual temperature and precipitation data for nine selected weather stations, spatially distributed across Canada. Vogelsang's (1998) partial sum and Woodward et al's (1997) bootstrap methods are used for testing for trend Both methods suggest no warming in the Canadian temperature series except for Toronto, Ontario, which had significant increase over time, along with Moncton, New Brunswick and Indian Head, Saskatchewan, which had marginal increases. There is no evidence of increasing trend in precipitation except for Moncton, New Brunswick, which had a significantly increasing trend, thus, public policies designed to address the regional effects of climate change need to be adapted for a particular ecological zone, based on knowledge of the climate trends for that region, rather than on general global climate change patterns.