Incorporating climate trends in the stochastic modeling of extreme minimum air temperature series of Campinas, state of São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

Under the hypothesis that the presence of climate trends in the annual extreme minimum air temperature series of Campinas (Tminabs; 1891-2010; 22º54'S; 47º05'W; 669 m) may no longer be neglected, the aim of the work was to describe the probabilistic structure of this series based on the general extreme value distribution (GEV) with parameters estimated as a function of a time covariate. The results obtained by applying the likelihood ratio test and the percentil-percentil and quantil-quantil plots, have indicated that the use of a time-dependent model provides a feasible description of the process under evaluation. In this non-stationary GEV model the parameters of location and scale were expressed as time-dependent functions. The shape parameter remained constant. It was also verified that although this non-stationary model has indicated an average increase in the values of the analyzed data, it does not allow us to conclude that the region of Campinas is now free from frost occurrence since this same model also reveals an increasing trend in the dispersions of the variable under evaluation. However, since the parameters of location and scale of this probabilistic model are significantly conditioned on time, the presence of climate trends in the analyzed time series is proven.