Climate Data: Mongolia 1955-2010

During my four weeks of climate data, the regions I selected followed a set pattern. Right now, I am hopping around the map with no consistent rhyme or reason. I chose the Sahara and Australia because they are both dominated by desert. I chose China because I wanted to see what was happening in a very populated area. I choose Mongolia today because it fits nicely in a longitude/latitude rectangle, it was part of the China map yesterday and it contains a large part of the Gobi Desert, continuing with the theme of deserts started earlier.

Mongolia is much more sparsely populated than China and not as well covered by weather stations. Even so, there were 23,627 seasonal reports between 1955 to 2010, so it is nothing like the paucity of information we had in the polar regions.

Average Winter temperatures are all over the place, from less than 2° C to nearly 10° C. These temperatures are much colder than China and much more variable. The general trend is upward, though there was a drop in the low temperature and median at the beginning of this century compared to the end of the last.

Change in 1955-1975 median to 1999-2010 median: 1.6925° C. 

Spring shows steadily climbing in all our measurement standards, though the amount of increase is slowing down.

Change in 1955-1975 median to 1999-2010 median: 1.877° C. 

Summer shows increasing temperatures and the rate of warming is going up.

Change in 1955-1975 median to 1999-2010 median: 1.46° C.

Fall shows a temperature dip between 1988-1999 to 1999-2010, but these temperatures are still over a degree higher than what was seen in the 1955-197 era.

Change in 1955-1975 median to 1999-2010 median: 1.35° C.

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Confidence level of warming from time interval to time interval: 99.98%

Confidence level of the trend showing increasing warming: 65.8%

Average seasonal change in the medians of 1955-1975 to 1999-2010: 1.59° C.

We are very confident that this is a warming trend and not just random variation. We are not confident at all that the warming is speeding up, but at 1.59° C in 56 years, we don't have to be.  This number is definitely in the "hair on fire" range. Of the regions I've looked at, this is the worst increase of anyplace outside the polar regions.

This gets me interested in deserts in general.  Tomorrow: the Atacama desert in South America.