Analysis of climate change in Dnipropetrovsk Region

Abstract

The decision about writing this article was made after familiarization with the "Brief Climatic Essay of Dnepropetrovsk City (prepared based on observations of 1886 – 1937)" written by the Head of the Dnipropetrovsk Weather Department of the Hydrometeorological Service A. N. Mikhailov.

The guide has a very interesting fate: in 1943 it was taken by the Nazis from Dnipropetrovsk and in 1948 it returned from Berlin back to the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological and Environmental Directorate of the USSR, as evidenced by a respective entry on the Essay's second page.

Having these invaluable materials and data of long-term weather observations in Dnipro city we decided to analyze climate changes in Dnipropetrovsk region.

The article presents two 50-year periods, 1886-1937 and 1961-2015, as examples. Series of observations have a uniform and representative character because they were conducted using the same methodology and results processing.

We compared two main characteristics of climate: air temperature and precipitation.

The article describes changes of average annual temperature values and absolute temperature values. It specifies the shift of seasons' dates and change of seasons' duration.

We studied the changes of annual precipitation and peculiarities of their seasonable distribution. Apart from that peculiarities of monthly rainfall fluctuations and their heterogeneity were specified.

Since Dnipro city is located in the center of the region the identified tendencies mainly reflect changes of climatic conditions within the entire Dnipropetrovsk region.