Changes in extreme temperature and precipitation in the Caribbean region, 1961–2010

Abstract

A workshop was held at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, in May 2012 to build capacity in climate data rescue and to enhance knowledge about climate change in the Caribbean region. Scientists brought their daily observational surface temperature and precipitation data from weather stations for an assessment of quality and homogeneity and for the calculation of climate indices helpful for studying climate change in their region. This study presents the trends in daily and extreme temperature and precipitation indices in the Caribbean region for records spanning the 1961-2010 and 1986-2010 intervals. Overall, the results show a warming of the surface air temperature at land stations. In general, the indices based on minimum temperature show stronger warming trends than indices calculated from maximum temperature. The frequency of warm days, warm nights and extreme high temperatures has increased while fewer cool days, cool nights and extreme low temperatures were found for both periods. Changes in precipitation indices are less consistent and the trends are generally weak. Small positive trends were found in annual total precipitation, daily intensity, maximum number of consecutive dry days and heavy rainfall events particularly during the period 1986-2010. Correlations between indices and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO) index suggest that temperature variability and, to a lesser extent, precipitation extremes are related to the AMO signal of the North Atlantic surface sea temperatures: stronger associations are found in August and September for the temperature indices and in June and October for some of the precipitation indices.

The importance of using a high-resolution model to study the climate change on small islands: the Lesser Antilles case

“…Even if the RCP8.5 scenario seems to have a bigger impact on extreme precipitation, both scenarios lead to similar results: longer dry period (Â'2 d), a bigger annual total precipitation (Â '170 mm), very heavy daily precipitations more frequent ( Â'3per year) and a stronger 1 d maximum precipitation (Â '20 mm). These trends are in concordance with the observed trends illustrated in Stephenson et al (2014).…”

Cryptic regime shift in benthic community structure on shallow reefs in St. John, US Virgin Islands

“…The AMO is a broad measure of North Atlantic sea surface temperature and multiple aspects of hemispherical weather and climate, and has a periodicity of ~70 yr (Steinman et al 2015). There are associations between the AMO and rainfall in a number of Caribbean locations (Stephenson et al 2014), and the AMO is associated with the density of scleractinian skeletons in the Florida Keys (Helmle et al 2011), as well as the oxygen isotope composition of at least one coral in Venezuela (Hetzinger et al 2008). The current phase of the AMO appears to be reaching the apogee of its cycle, and therefore is likely to decline in coming decades (Steinman et al 2015).…”

Exacerbation of the 2013–2016 Pan‐Caribbean Drought by Anthropogenic Warming

“…Given the warming and drying projected for the Caribbean over the coming decades (Dai, 2011; Hayhoe, 2013; IPCC, 2014) and because of the observed warming in the Caribbean since 1950 (Herrera & Ault, 2017; Stephenson et al, 2014), assessing the contribution of anthropogenic warming to drought is critical for better understanding drought risks in the region. Along these lines, we estimate the contribution of anthropogenic warming to the Pan‐Caribbean drought using climate data from observations and model simulations to calculate the scPDSI for the period 1950–2016, which we used as a proxy for surface soil moisture balance given the data limitation of the Caribbean.…”